


The Mountains Are The Same

by bonehandledknife (ladywinter), Primarybufferpanel (ArwenLune)



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Buckle Up Kids We're Going To The Feels Place, Citadel Politics, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Furiosa is the most eaten out character in fandom history, GENERAL WARNING FOR IMMORTAN JOE GROSSNESS PAST AND PRESENT, Gen, Group Sex, Lizard innuendo, Multi, People trying to be good to each other in a decidedly ungood world, People who survived because we say they survived, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Puppy Piles, Sex, Various internalised misery, Warboys dealing with a post-Joe world, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-12-03 18:25:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 50
Words: 232,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11537925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladywinter/pseuds/bonehandledknife, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/pseuds/Primarybufferpanel
Summary: Furiosa and her War Boys, before and after the REVolution. Plus Max, how to build a sustainable Citadel, and.. everything else."If one tries to think about history, it seems to me - it's like looking at a range of mountains. And the first time you see them, they look one way. But then time changes, the pattern of light shifts. Maybe you've moved slightly, your perspective has changed. The mountains are the same, but they look very different."—Robert Harris





	1. Valhalla Can Wait

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  This is a repost of the [The Mountains Are The Same series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/290441) as a single story, because that makes it 50 times easier to download it for ereaders. Nothing about the story has changed, this is purely for download convenience. 
> 
> The reason we originally posted the story as series was that we could tag each part very precisely for triggers. Losing that option means that for this version we will have to stick with generic 'graphic depictions of violence', and a giant 'References to past (sexual) abuse/violence because Immortan Joe' sign. 
> 
> If you need more specific per-chapter warnings, please refer to the series page linked above and you can see exactly what we warned for in each chapter.

Ace knows he's not doing this half life thing quite right. You're supposed to get tumors, get sick, get weak, and before you get too weak to do war, you're supposed to find (or create, some boys are desperate enough not to get picky) your opportunity to enter Valhalla.

It's just - he's not really sick. The tumors are slow, and they don't bother him much. He doesn't get night fevers. He hasn't yet come into a situation what would benefit more from his death than from a little creative thinking.

It's earned him a reputation - he's The Ace, oldest, most experienced.

The thing is, being experienced isn’t considered a good thing in a War Boy. Having seen a lot of trade runs means you haven’t been dedicated enough to die for the Immortan.

Ace knows this. Has his own thoughts about it. He’s seen Imperators come and go. (Been told ‘Not very brave, are you?’ more than once, but if he’s gonna die, it's not gonna be stupid or desperate. If he's gonna die he’s gonna make it _count_ )

He gets it, he does - the Immortan doesn’t spare the Imperators. One bad run, one lost cargo, and you don’t see them again. For an Imperator it's better to lose all their crew than their cargo.

So Ace just… doesn’t expect much from a new Imperator. This one has been a scout and a patrol leader, which is more than the last one. At least she can drive. She looks them all over with cool eyes, her expression unimpressed.

Ace tries to see them through her eyes. After the last Imperator, they're a mixed mess: maybe a third experienced convoy crew, a third inexperienced but trained up to the job in preparation of replacing crew, about a third completely green War Boys just itching to snatch a glorious entrance into Valhalla.

He's given them all a stern talk about the Imperator's arm, which is not to be touched or even mentioned, but he can see their eyes tracking it.

Machines are like better, more reliable bodies. They outlast War Boys, can be renewed, repaired, fixed in ways their own bodies can't. An Imperator who is partly machine is always going to inspire them to be idiots, Ace suspects.

He can't deny he is intrigued himself by the gleaming metal, the power it exudes. There is something holy, Immortan blessed, about a woman who has replaced part of herself with machine.

“Where are the men positioned during the run?” The Imperator asks, and he tells her.

“Where would you put them?” she asks, and he blinks at her. There is nobody in the Citadel who has been on the War Rig convoy as often as he, and he’s never been asked that.

Once he’s told her, she adjusts some small things - she likes space at her flanks, so she can swerve without worrying about her own people - and then nods and tells him to go with that.

Their first encounter with the Buzzards is a success.

That is to say, the War Rig arrives intact and still fully loaded with bullets and guzzoline.

Four crew fall in the defence of the convoy and seven more - mostly the green hands - chrome up and hurtle themselves screaming into Valhalla. That leaves Ace alone to defend their left flank. Three Buzzard buggies are lined up, and he knows that if he took his last lance and leapt, he would probably wipe them all away. He'd die as chrome and as witnessed as he could have wished.

He'd also leave the convoy's flank unguarded, and what if another Buzzard car is waiting for them?

So instead he hurls his lance, damages but doesn't explode the front buggy. Leaps to the War Rig's cab, gets on the runners beside the Imperator and asks her for her crossbow. Its explosive bolt is going to do it, from this angle, but part of him is burning with shame for even asking.

She stomps the gas pedal into its lock, swings out of the cab, and fires it herself. The front buggy explodes and the decelerating fireball wipes away the two cars behind it.

Ace wishes he'd thought to hurl himself after. Anything, even dying without glory, being refused Valhalla, would have been better than being old cowardly Ace, who needed his Imperator's help to do what he should have done.

They arrive safely at the Citadel. By the time she jumps down from the cab, Ace is crouched down by a wheel well, trying to judge how warped it is. Not the most urgent of tasks, but one that will hopefully let him escape her notice and her scorn, at least here in public. He has no doubt it will fall on him later - she saw his cowardice, must have seen all of it.

He holds his breath when she passes close behind him, and then jolts as a heavy metal claw lands on his head, lifts for a moment, and comes down again before disappearing.

"Nice work," he hears the Imperator right behind him. "Glad to still have you."

It catches up to him that that is her _hand_. She patted his head. _With her mechanical hand_. It's as close to being Witnessed by the Immortan you can come without dying.

Ace loses his balance and rocks forward, landing on his knees, and takes what feels like his first proper breath since the Buzzards.

(For their next run, she hands him an M79 grenade launcher, modified into a hand weapon.

"Now find me some crew who's here to do their job, not die shiny," she says, metal hand clapping down on his shoulder.

Ace decides then and there that he'll be with her until the end.)


	2. Buildering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buildering: The art of climbing on buildings, which is often illegal.  
> To build: the act of construction by assembling and joining parts or materials.
> 
> A crew comes together.

It takes time to get a crew together that works, that talks to each other, that isn't full of guys who are mostly after their own glorious end. Ace selects the guys, tests them. The War Rig team is one of the most elite the Citadel has, the biggest rations allocated to surviving members, the chance to visit and personally trade with towns on their route, and, most of all, with the best chance to die historic. There are plenty of interested War Boys. Even more now they have the Imperator with the chrome hand.

Once he has some he's confident of, they meet her, and she watches the new guys in a drill on the stationary rig. She drops the ones who can't resist the urge to showboat for her attention - to the very vocal disappointment of an otherwise excellent young lancer called Slit - and that's how they slowly assemble a new crew.

She has him pick a full complement of crew and a further ten who have potential to be crew, then puts him in charge of their training. The Imperator’s busy, elbow deep in grease, modifying the War Rig inside and out, not only tweaking the Rig under the hood but stabilizing perches, adding weapons caches, and soldering spikes to the wheels reminiscent of the Buzzards to the east. She has the repair pups crawling wild all over the machine and there still aren't enough hands for all she wants done, so it isn’t a surprise that she delegates the training.

However Ace didn’t expect the responsibility to land on him.

Nobody has ever put this much stock in Ace's opinion, and it is the most exhilarating and terrifying thing he's ever done to go on the next run with the guys he's personally selected for her. He's worked hard to instill her ideas in them: _Fight smart, the rig needs a full crew._ The Imperator refuses to witness anybody who chooses death when there are better options. Waste this Imperator’s time by forcing her to find new crew and she’ll shut the gates in your face _herself._

It turns out to be a milk run, in more ways than just mothers' milk - the Buzzards lay low, and they have the time for some thorough formation drills. They practice their left flank defensive move a few dozen times, until they move smoothly around each other, crossbow and grenade launcher at the ready. When she's back behind the wheel he idly suggests a few swerve and brake tests, _give the new handholds a good workout, swing the new boys around a little,_ and Furiosa flashes him a toothy grin.

A couple of weeks later they have their first truly successful run on the War Rig - meaning successful by the Imperator's standards, not the Immortan's. Meaning, successfully fended off an attack and lost no crew.

The horn sounds as they approach the Citadel, echoing low and loud up against the sheer rock walls, and Ace feels his heart soar, lifted by the noise of the crew cheering.

When the rig comes to a full stop and the Imperator swings down, there is some kind of purpose to her movements, and he goes over to report to her. She steps close up to him, and he startles when she reaches up with her metal hand and grabs the back of his head, tilts his head down toward hers. His eyes are wide when she conks her forehead against his, not a headbutt but not exactly gentle either, with a light side-to-side motion that he can feel smear some of her Imperator's black onto his forehead.

Before the full implications of this even register, she's flashes him a grin, War Boy-wild, and releases him to grab Sprocket, who looks bewildered and then starts to grin too.

The Imperator is alight with the kind of exuberance he's never seen on her. So far she's been cool and remote and always ready to reinforce her authority. As she moves down the line of War Boys, Ace realises she can't be unaware what it means to the men to be touched with her metal hand. She can't be unaware that she is acknowledging them each, personally, as part of her crew.

She's not a small woman, but some of the War Boys tower over her, and she has to yank down their heads to her. He sees a bloody scratch on Sprocket's head and suspects any scars will be treasured. In the eyes of the men he can already see that in this moment, Furiosa has grown to be twenty feet tall and bulletproof.

The crew cheers louder, feeding off her energy, reaching for each other to crash foreheads in imitation. The sounds of their celebration bounce up the rock walls of the Citadel, as if etching themselves into the stone.

* * *

That night, none of them even end up in their bunks. Not gone off on their individual wild celebrations as is customary; they’re in the meal halls still.

They’re in the meal halls and they’re handing each other food and passing down plates like catching a body falling from tumbling like hand meeting hand to swing away from wreckage like putting out your palm and a lance lands in it because someone’s got you and they’re all spilling out endless words, endless revisiting of that run, what would be done better faster more, more modifications to their lances, more maneuvers to practice, is there a better way to get weapons to you, is there a better position for our flamer, is there a better allocation for the bullets…

“I don’t think I saw our Imperator miss _once._ ”

And their tables roared and hands slapped at the surfaces and aqua-cola was lifted high and splashed about like chrome.

Little by little, the night grew long and the mess hall emptied of all crew but them. Their stories grew softer, grew quiet, and almost secret like Witnessing that they shouldn’t have the right to have. They were all still alive. In the crevices of their souls where they know that machines are better than bodies because machines don’t die, this is miraculous. Three tables worth of War Boys became crammed into one, spilled on top and across the floor of the table where Furiosa held court.

No one wanted to leave. (All wanting on some level to make sure of each other’s presence, to count each other again. To be accounted for—)

But War Boys run dry eventually too and they drooped from the table to puddle around each other on the ground, like the half-acknowledged memories of their War Pup piles. (They shouldn’t be, they _shouldn’t_ —)

“Look at this lot,” Ace huffed at his Imperator, the both of them remain hunched at the table.

“I’ll need to get them up in the morning.” Furiosa murmured.

Ace knew that if the Boys were found here by the morning crew, they’d hear no end of it from the chop boys and the other crews.

(The realization is like swallowing something _alive_.) It makes something skitter in his stomach to realize that she’s watching over them, _still._

“I’ll keep you company then,” Ace said, and raised his cup.

She smacked hers against it, gently, like heads meeting.


	3. Cordelette

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cordelette: A long loop of accessory cord used to tie into multiple anchor points.
> 
> _Ace didn't know if the Boss realised. Realised that when you claimed a thing, it could lay claim on you in return, if it dared._

Ace didn't know if the Boss realised. Realised that when you claimed a thing, it could lay claim on you in return, if it dared.

War Boys weren't supposed to claim things. Even their boots had been somebody's before and would be somebody else's after they died.

He watched her carefully - it seemed like he was always watching her, becoming attuned to her moods, learning when she was in the mood to hear some gossip or when she would rather have quiet from him. He learned the patterns of her stomach cramps and when her arm was bothering her, when she would be amused by the hijinks the boys got up to and when it was better for her not to know. He learned her body language for when trade negotiations were going well and when she wanted to be interrupted.

Six months after becoming her Ace, he felt like he was beginning to be what she needed from him.

She was standing in the Trade room of the Bullet Farm trade house, and Ace realised he'd never seen _this_ particular body language from her. The official Citadel trade had been concluded, but a few of the men had wanted her to try some kind of drink.The Boss never drank, that he knew— at least not the guzzoline flavoured rotgut the War Boys brewed. He wouldn't have expected her to drink in a room full of strangers, but she'd smelled the bottle and nodded for a glass.

There were eleven men in the room with her; five from the Bullet Farm, three from Gastown and three independent traders from further out settlements. Some of the most powerful and connected men in the region. These were not safe men. This was not a safe place. And yet she was drinking from the glass of light orange alcohol, her spine losing its usual steel; and in his opinion the traders who'd offered it to her stood a little too close, smiled a little too wide—

"Boss alright?" Guzzer asked, coming up to Ace's vantage point. The old lancer looked into the room for a few moments and frowned. "She drinking?"

"I want to get her out of there." He just couldn't think of a reason that would get her immediate response without also getting the traders wanting to involve themselves.

"Well?" Guzzer said, stepping into the room. Ace shrugged and joined him, coming up to flank their Imperator.

"Boss, got something you need to see," Ace said into her ear. She smelled of fruit— not something he got to taste more than once a year, but instantly recognisable even with the strong haze of alcohol.

"Yeah?" she swayed a little, steadied herself by planting an elbow against his chest.

"Yeah, something don’t add up on the manifest," Guzzer said, giving a dark glare at the traders, and between the two them they guided her out of the room without too much of a spectacle. The traders looked annoyed, but that could be dealt with in the morning. She’d kept hold of her glass. An _actual glass_ , made out of clear and sparkling material, a ridiculous luxury by any measure. _What had the other men been thinking letting her out of the room with it?_ The Ace frowned and reminded himself to check the manifests before they set off.

Once out of the room they let her walk on her own, which she seemed to be doing fine apart from the sense that it was mostly her own momentum keeping her going. The three of them went to the Citadel sector of the trade house and Guzzer put the heavy bar on the door behind them.

"Thanks," the Boss said, not slurring but slow and deliberate. She was leaning into Ace's side and fumbling at the buckles of her arm, hindered by the fact that she was still holding half a glass of the fruity liquor.

The way Boss watched them, with eyes strange, made even those in the far corners of the room sit up straight.

“Hey what’s up?” Sprocket asked for those in the room. A couple crew automatically slid forward to help their Imperator with her arm as Ace braced her up and she quirked her lips at them in a mirage of a smile. They settled her arm carefully on an out-of-the-way table (an actual table, they really spared no expense with their lodging, there was even _light_ ) and turned back to her to see if she needed anything else.

Furiosa was looking down at the amber liquid as she tilted the cup back and forth, catching the flickery electric glimmers. The smile as she lifted the cup and inhaled deeply struck them all like freak lightning and the Ace caught a couple shifting with it, even more with the inadvertent sound she let out. He wondered if this decadence reminded her of her blessed time in the Vault, the luxuries that Immortan Joe was able to provide her before she fell. They all treasured whatever time they’d had in the presence of their Redeemer, and to have had that nearly daily and then been rejected… Ace didn’t know how she’d dealt. He found he couldn’t be too surprised at her decision to get pissed tonight if the liquor brought her such pleasant memories.

She spun towards him and Ace was taken aback by her speed, and by the glass held two inches from his eyes, “Ace, look at this, you’re a good judge,” she nodded at the thought as if to make sure he knew, “do you think there’s still enough?”

“Enough?” he echoed, confused. _The drink certainly looked shiny but what does she want it to be enough for?_

“For everyone,” she said, “to have a taste.”

That just confused him more and she frowned at him, a bit larger than this all warranted, and tries to press the glass to his lips and tilt. The liquid in the cup was low enough to not even touch his mouth with his height difference, and Boss huffed and ordered him, “Kneel.”

Ace knelt, some combination of habit-and-wish rendering the action instant despite the oddness of the situation.

Furiosa hummed at him, drink-loosened, and looked at him intently as she guided the cup again to his mouth, stump bracing the other side, letting the alcohol tease at his mouth sweetly. It—

_On certain days when the winds blow just right, if you’re in the middle of one of the Citadel’s walkways or riding from one to another on a line, on those days there are pockets where the air smelled fruity and rich and densely alive, the scent coming off of the terraces and greenhouses at the top. The smell would be an impression of a place that you could only imagine experiencing, there and gone like a nightfever dream._

—The taste of the alcohol was like that impression condensed, bright and smooth and crisp. Ace found himself slumping back onto his heels, looking up at the Imperator, _his_ Imperator, as she blessed him with this experience and he found her expression… kind. It was an expression they’d usually allowed themselves to give only to their War Pups and usually only to the ones they’ve been assigned personally. It struck the Ace much like the alcohol did.

“It was a good decision making you my second,” she told him, and then moved on to Guzzer, lingering by.

When his Imperator looked at him encouragingly, Guzzer fell to his knees like his strings were cut, and she smiled at him like she had at Ace, told him his on-the-go blackthumb work had been noticed last run, and encouraged him to take a sip too. The poor high lancer looked like he didn’t know what he was confused by more, and looked to the Ace for guidance.

Ace could only shake his head, still at a loss, and Guzzer took a sip almost despite himself. He looked even more poleaxed after.

They watched as their Imperator moved around the room, the cascade of crew stumbling upright from whatever position they’d been in, to attend her, even those War Boys that were short enough kneeling because, the Ace thought, _how could they not?_ He still wasn't sure if his legs worked, from the shock, as Furiosa spoke with all nineteen guys and told them—

_I see you. I know your name. I see what you do. You are part of this._

_—told them,_ Ace realized with crescendoing shock, _Thank you._

Guzzer had risen shakily from his kneel as their Imperator moved on from him and then flopped down next to the Ace, legs bent in front of him, elbows to his knees, whites showing all around the rim of his crazed-looking eyes, “She’s _thanking_ us.”

There was outrage and disbelief warring with the warmth in his voice, as they watch her arrive at the last crew, Koch, their newest, a blocky War Boy who was willing to try things different but still needed some instruction on how they ran things. The cup looked empty, but he kneels anyway, and looked at her already as if she’d done enough. Their Boss just glanced at the cup and ran her finger around it firmly; it came away wet, and she painted his mouth with it.

The room inhaled as one.

And then she gave a nod as if it was all nothing, weaved a little unsteadily, and all but purposefully crashed into the corner where many of them had congregated. They had been taking the chance, away from the Citadel and from those who might scoff, to pile into each other like they’d once did as War Pups.

They all simultaneously glanced at the mattress provided for their Imperator at the other end of the room and then glanced back at her, and she looked at them all as if they were driving unnecessarily slow. She hitched her ankle around Koch’s calf and hooked him down, and curled into him with a huff.

“You’d think everyone forgot how to sleep,” she muttered with a slight slur as her breaths slowed, eyes narrowed in near-sleep, and glared at them all in challenge.

It was nice to be warm and to be all cuddled up, they’ve all fond memories of when they were small and they could curl into each other, keep each other warm in the damp, chilly sleeping alcoves in the caves beneath the Citadel. Once a War Boy reached their majority, he was supposed to face the night alone. Expected to be strong enough to bear it and brave enough to not say a word. Softness was frowned on once your grease is earned. If it wasn’t a touch that would establish your position and place, your status or your peers, it needed to be hidden.

They’ve never expected their Imperator to provide a hiding place. They’ve never expected—

_In their bones, War Boys understand reverence. They understand from the moment of birth when they are taken from the Organic Mechanic’s ledges and presented to the Altar of Wheels, when the names of the remembered Witnessed are spoken into a small ear, and the story of He Who Has Saved Them is told._

_As their bones grow, the stories and names are repeated to make their foundation strong; they know in their organic axles that Immortan Joe is their Redeemer, and his Imperators are uncountably blessed, a holy court._

_When they Commune with the Imperators who’ve chosen them for crew, they sip the offered rotgut and murmur thanks._

_“My arm will lance our enemies, Imperator.”_

_“I will drive them upended, Imperator.”_

_“I will honor you. Imperator.”_

—And all these other Imperators that Ace has ever worked under, looked at their thanks like it was to be expected, dismissive and distant. Never have the War Boys been thanked in return. Let alone been given something so obviously treasured by the Imperator. Never have they met an Imperator so willing to be so accessible and unguarded.

“I don’t _understand_ ,” Guzzer grumbled again. Ace shared a look with Sprocket, who had a similar expression. They watched together as crew piled in around their Boss and Koch; the younger ones first, who’ve never been on any crew but theirs. The most experienced ones looked much like Guzzer, looked like Ace, like Sprocket— shell-shocked, edging closer with hesitance.

These older crew took up positions around the border, weaved themselves only lightly into the tangle of limbs or simply sitting up by the mass of bodies, eyeing each other warily. Watching each other process their individual levels of disbelief and whether or not they should stop this.

The pile looked warm.

They watched as the sweats of the nightfevers were eased by bodies coming awake and pressing close, watched as one Boy’s night terrors would shake a whole area of War Boys awake and how there’d be sleepy soothings until they’d together fallen back asleep, watched as each of them clutched at the opportunity.

The time felt stolen. Thieved. They took turns falling asleep watching the pile and it only occurred to them as they sun rose that they’d shifted from watching the bodies with mild distrust to doing what they could to guard their sleep.

Imperators had their own quarters high up in the Citadel, where it wasn't so cold and damp at night. They had blankets. It had never occurred to any of the War Boys that one of their leaders might _want_ to sleep like this. They had certainly not expected their unshakeable Imperator to take comfort from the close press of bodies, nor for War Boys to wake up looking as if they’ve gotten more sleep than they could remember receiving in years.

It was a lot to think about.

* * *

* * *

Ace watched their Imperator wake up disorientated, holding her head. Unlike the others, she didn’t dive back to more stolen sleep but looked around herself confused. She blinked at the Ace and he just quirked his mouth at her, shrugging. Furiosa nodded and started working herself out of the pile.

“I should finish the trades with last night’s group, before their hangovers leave them.”

 _Not one word of denial, their Imperator_ , Ace thought. He watched her from his place sitting by the wall as she affixed her arm and then rummaged with both hands in their stores until she fetched a canteen of aqua-cola. He was not quite certain he was supposed to watch this, still felt awkward from the unsettling kindnesses of last night. She pressed the canteen to her eyes for a long moment and then drank.

“I can guard this lot while you finish.” Ace suggested. “Would an hour be enough time before I kick ‘em awake and stir up the whole camp?”

She hummed consideringly looking at the sleeping pile, and then nodded as she left, glass in hand, “I remember Guzzer mentioning something about the cargo lists, follow up on that on your end.”

The Ace knew that she would be following up on her end as well, with the festy traders themselves. He went and poked awake Kompass and Morsov from the middle of the pile, and told them to follow as backup. Boss might want them to sleep more but those two have had plenty.

It was only half an hour later that Kompass came back and started waking up and whispering to the others in some distress. Ace was about ready to charge out the door when he’d heard snatches of what was agitating them.

“She’s not getting _any_? Not even for herself? I thought she brought some of her own goods to trade.”

“Trading it all for gear for the Rig, bits of metal and cable and suchlike.”

“But she was so—”

“I _know_.”

“Hey I brought something to trade, d’you think it might be enough to, maybe, get her some?”

“Let's have us a look. I brought something too.”

They began waking others. Ace was staying out of it. Reminding the Boss of her time in the Vault always made her distant and clipped, as Ace would be too if he’d had the time and attention and luxuries of the Immortan lavished on him to have it all snatched away. But the boys seemed so enthusiastic about getting her a gift that he’d decided to shut up about it for once.

He suspected it would be to his eventual regret.

Ace ended up ambling along behind the group that’d finally assembled to approach the trader, who eyed their stuff and went to rummage in a bag.

The bottle was tiny and round, made of thick glass, with a cap with a little glass rod. On the side it said in faded letters 'Quick dry'. What it might once have contained was a mystery, but what it contained now was worth all the sundry little items the crew had brought along to trade for themselves.

"Best I can do. Enough for a taste, anyway," the trader said.

Kompass touched the little bottle, glanced back at Ace. Ace sighed and nodded, because yeah, if they were going to do this, this was probably the best deal they were going to get. They weren't as skillful or experienced at this as the Boss. Now it was known they wanted it, wanted it enough to offer all their treasures, the other trader who had some of the liquor wasn't going to be any cheaper. 

"We'll do it," the younger War Boy said, and the trader nodded and swept their offerings into a bag - half a beautifully painted cup from before time, a carefully stitched belt pocket, a small set of bone needles, a little round mirror that folded into a case, several little pots of amber plastic with caps that required a special grip to open, and other such salvaged things.

Then the trader uncapped the little bottle and offered them a sniff, and Ace almost backed away. The experience yesterday had been so… he still didn't have words for it, didn't understand. He wasn't sure he was ready to have that again.

"Smell it. Don't want ya coming back claiming it wasn't the good stuff," the trader insisted.  

Kompass leaned in and sniffed carefully, and from his expression Ace knew it was the same liquor. Not like they were likely to ever forget.

“Yeah,” he nodded, voice not entirely steady, “yeah that’s it.”

The little bottle was recapped quickly and offered to the young lancer, who’d held it carefully in both his large hands, the bottle seeming impossibly tiny.

He offered it first to the War Boy who’d had the idea, but they seemed intimidated by it, offered it to the one who’d donated the largest stash but he’d simply denied he participated. Kompass wheezed out a sigh and glared at them all from under his brows.

There’s perhaps an excessive amount of crew lingering where their Boss was exchanging last words with her chagrined-looking counterpart from the Bullet Farm, who’d glanced at the crowd and gave a considering hum, and left, causing their Imperator to glance around as well.

Kompass looked down at his cupped palms as if taking courage and moved forward. She squared her shoulders to him and the stocky War Boy pulled up short.

“Boss, we,” he shifted his weight from left foot to right, and closed up his hands a little. “You seemed… that is, we thought, that.”

He opened his palms carefully so she could see.

“We pooled together what we had, it’s not much,” fingers closing a bit, uncertain, the words rushing out quick, “but last night when you gave us yours— ah, well, we wanted to give you back…” 

Kompass trailed off. The bottle was obviously less than what she’d had in her glass last night. He closed his mouth on his words and glanced at the dirt.

Furiosa looked at him for a long tense moment. Ace saw her breathing go high and shallow and she reached out with her machine hand and lightly touched the back of one of Kompass’ palms, still curled around the bottle. It gently pressed until his fingers unfurled and she reached in and took the bottle out where she could look at it in the morning sun.

It shined like polished chrome. And still she said nothing.

Her mouth had a set to it that was determinedly, fixedly, casual. Ace’s gut sank. _It was too much,_ he knew it.

Her hand closed around the glass container as if locking it away. She swept the yard with her gaze looking carefully at each of her crew and Ace’s shoulders have never felt so tense. With the loyalties forged last night, with how much the crew scrambled for the gift and how they offered what little they had for barter, Ace didn’t know if he could watch her reject it.

Furiosa’s eyes were flat, distant, as she almost absently took in their eager, but slowly falling faces.

She looked down at her clenched fist, and a breath rolled through her, long and controlled.

And then their Imperator looked up and nodded at them, said, “I See it. Thank you.” 

She sounded very formal, and before she'd finished speaking she'd started making her way towards the War Rig. As she passed by the War Boys who’d looked the most eager or the most devastated, she touched a shoulder or said some word, and they nodded back, looking calmed. 

Her face, the set of her jaw, said that she increasingly wasn’t. Furiosa swung up into the cabin quickly and Ace thought he saw the beginning of tears and _shit_ , he whipped towards the crew ordering them into the last checks before they leave. Trying to give Furiosa some time alone.

("Is she pleased?" "I think so" he hears the whispers as they got busy with their tasks)

She was clearly devastated from having failed the Immortan, he just knew it, but she was trying to keep it together for the crew.

Eventually their Boss leaned back against the seat, and looked around, and Ace came forward cautiously, stomach still around his feet. It’d been his responsibility to pick crew and to train them up for her use; his responsibility to rein them in if they went too far. He should know better, _did_ know better. This was on his shoulders, not theirs. Ace climbed up to lean an arm against the bottom of the window, checking her expression. From what he could see, with her still staring ahead through the windshield, it was still blank.

“Eh, sorry Boss,” Ace apologized and she glanced at him, her eyes sharpened a little, “didn’t mean to hurt you; the crew, they.” 

He has to pause as two of them swept by, chattering, blood up and excited to leave.

“They meant well,” Ace swallowed, knowing that after the comfort of last night her normal defenses must have been as lowered as theirs were and this must have blindsided her, what had been meant as a kind gesture landing like a punch.

In her shoes, Ace would hate them for it, if only a little.

She drew a breath, her chest hitching a little, "I know they meant well."

Which was not the same as forgiving them, but he understood it was the best she could do right now.

* * *

 

Years later, after the first fruit harvest of New Citadel, Janey comes in one day to show Furiosa a round, orangey-pink fruit cradled carefully in her wizened hands. It looks fuzzy and soft.

"Look Fury, the first ripe peach!"

They've never seen the old Vuvalini so excited, and Furiosa's face does something complicated, endeared and wistful. Janey talks excitedly about maybe making liquor if the harvest is large enough.

"--though I can scarcely remember what the peach liquor we used to make back in the day smelled like. Do you know? I suppose you were too young to have a real memory of it. You can't have tasted more than a sip from your Initiate Mother."

Furiosa smiles that complicated smile again, somewhere between happy and heartbroken, and digs through her storage chest. Opens a small metal box and pulls out a tiny leather bundle.

Ace watches as she opens the drawstring on the leather, and taking out a little round glass bottle with a glass wand in the cap. It's still full of amber liquid.

"I thought you hated us," he says quietly, before he can stop himself.

"It was the first…” she says, eyes fixed on the tiny bottle, “first time. In years - that I was sure.”

“Sure of what?”

"That the Green Place really existed. That I—” She swallows thickly, and her mouth twists around the words, “h-hadn't… made it up."

Janey makes a soft sound in her throat and does what Ace can't, is too stalled to do, like a broken down engine, which is go to Furiosa and wrap an arm around her.

"The crew gave me the,” Furiosa glances at Ace over Janey's shoulder, her eyes shiny. “—the memory. To carry with me," she chokes out the words, and Ace finally shakes himself into motion, steps in to bring his forehead to hers. It seems that despite the vast gulf of misunderstanding between them back then, they'd managed to do something right after all, even if they couldn't know how right.

"You never drank any."

And he is struck, _struck_ , by the understanding that back when she'd first tasted this sweet, golden memory of a home she'd all but forgotten about, she had wanted to share it with all of the crew.

"I smelled it.” Furiosa breathes out shakily, “W-when I needed to remember, in my senses in my heart in my _bones_ , where I came from."


	4. Cairn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cairn: A distinctive pile of stones placed to designate a summit or mark a trail, often above the treeline.
> 
> _Under Imperator Furiosa the War Rig team grows successful, and then it grows legendary._

Under Imperator Furiosa the War Rig team grows successful, and then it grows legendary. The Ace hears the whispers, in the corridors, the corners, the garages, the pits, and they’re filled with no little amount of awe and jealousy.

There are always War Boys looking to be noticed enough to get tested for the crew, or for one of the War Rig's repair teams. It's not unknown for him to look for new drivers there, after Sprocket turned out to be so shine, so even their Blackthumb positions are hotly contested.

They still lose people, of course. Sometimes simply to enemy action, and sometimes because at the end of a crew member's half-life, the Imperator’s willing to give them a position on the most dangerous perch and a chance to die well, to be Witnessed. It’s still at less than a third of the rate the previous Imperator did— or the others do— and Ace knows it means the team as a whole accumulates skills, keeps getting better, more creative.

It's almost blasphemy to be pleased that their crew isn't hurrying off to die gloriously, and they never say it out loud, but Ace knows the Boss is as proud as he is.

* * *

After that run to Gastown, with how well received their gift had been, Sprocket watches as a certain tension fall away from the crew that he hadn’t even known existed. Their movements seem simultaneously less rushed and hurried but more smooth, and faster, as if somehow the sense that they had more time to do it in made their decisions better. He’ll think on this more later.

For now the crew’s returning their wheels to the Altar after yet another successful run, Furiosa at the lead and the outriders trailing after her, and Sprocket’s hanging back razzing Eskins for almost eating it on a turn when he hears a bit of a commotion off to the side.

They've drawn a bit of an audience— they almost always do— and at the side to the entrance of the Wheel Room is a small group of younger War Boys, done with their tasks of unloading and ferrying. Sprocket recognises them in a vague sort of way, just one more cluster of boys vying for the Boss' attention before they have the maturity of skill level to hope to keep it for more than a fleeting second. He and Guzzer tend to refer to them as Mediocre Boys. There's an older War Pup with them, one of the ones just about coming up on his Apprenticing. His eyes are following the Boss with something of reverence.

“This one thinks he’s got the _right_ ,” the boys are saying, shoving the Pup backwards, knocking him out of the Boss’ sightline, almost up against a wall, “look at how scrawny he is, who's gonna pick him for anything but gardening, never going to make it onto a crew.”

“Better send ‘im back to the breeders,” one of the taller stockier War Boys booms with an awful leer, using his full height to tower over the much shorter War Pup, “Have Rett 'ere nurse at that teat som' more.” He reaches out and pets the Pup’s cheekbone and everyone laughs; the small shoulders are hard, his jaw ticking, feet shifting his weight forward—

Sprocket watches and and strides up and casually slams his wheel once at the speaker’s solar plexus and then shoves it up under his chin, driving him away from the War Pup and against the wall. He recognizes the bully now, someone he didn’t even bother remembering the name of, who’d failed even the pre-selections for placement onto their crew.

“I think,” Sprocket says mildly, glaring upwards through his good eye, “You are in no position to judge whether someone’s worthy.” He presses the wheel harder and higher until the bully’s rising on his toes, off-balance.

One of the Mediocre Boys’ hands comes up to scrabble at the wheel laying pressure at his throat, the other hand claws at Sprocket, who only jams that arm against the wall hard enough for the strike to sound up through the elbow, like a horn, before it could even make contact.

“ ‘Rett’, was it? Do you see how I’m doing this, Pup?” Sprocket calls behind him.

“Yes.” The voice answers immediately. He notes that it doesn’t have a quaver. _Good._

“You’re smaller, built for speed—” He looks backward and in the same motion twists the wheel up around the bully’s neck into a blow snapping at the back of his skull. The pissant drops, knocked out. (“ _Mediocre_ ,” Eskins laughs.)

Sprocket steps over the unconscious body towards the pup and nods at the little one to come with him, Eskins had already taken up position on Rett’s other side.

“—like me. You’ll never be as strong as them,” Sprocket says bluntly, “you’ll never have much more shoulder to grow into. So don’t fight to their strengths.”

He glances down and he sees large eyes track him with awe. He sees the grease around the fingertips: aspirations as a repair pup then. “You're not a hammer, you're a drill, so don't try to beat in that nail, huh?” Sprocket tries to speak to what the pup knows, “Use your strengths. Tch, should have the Boss talk to you some.”

Rett’s eyes light up with hope and Sprocket thinks that’s not too bad of an idea. The Boss seemed always in need of more Repair Pups tinkering with the War Rig, not that the crew minded because it meant always something new to try or play with.

_She’ll find a space for this one,_ Sprocket thinks. ( _Like she did for all of us._ )

“Yo Boss!” Sprocket calls, “Got another blackthumb for you.”

Furiosa turns from chatting with the drivers, having long finished placing their wheels back on the altar. Sprocket feels a little uneasy that they're still waiting for him but there was no censure in her gaze. Her eyes meets his then sweeps past to take in Rett, the War Pup’s form... and his chest scars.

Ones that match Sprocket’s own, trophies of the battle he’d fought with the Mechanic to get himself properly tuned, all the unnecessary parts sheared off.

Furiosa’s eyes clear with understanding and she nods, “Let’s go test you in the garages.” She waves the rest of the drivers ahead to the mess halls and turns to lead Sprocket and their new Apprentice down to where the convoy’s being repaired by the crew’s dedicated garage team. There’s always something to work on right after a run.

“Th' others're never gonna believe this,” came the quiet awed whisper at Sprocket's shoulder.

Sprocket has the brief thought that that’s not an unusual state to be in, around their Boss.

(He doesn’t notice that Rett looks at both him and the Imperator while saying so, doesn’t notice the conversations that rise up in the rooms and hallways as the crew empties out, and doesn’t notice the way War Boys edge away from the one labeled Mediocre like he’d carried the plague.)

* * *

"Boss," Ace called, and she waited for his long strides to catch up with her.

"Ace," she nodded.

"Don't know if I— don't mean to—" he hedged, then took a deep breath and squared his jaw. "Might be better you don't come to the Pits anymore."

Her eyebrows went up. The fighting pits were where the Warboys kept themselves sharp. There was sparring and then there were the Pits, where boys challenged each other, hashed out beefs, worked off their energy. Established themselves. It was through the Pits that she'd fought her way out of being a scrawny, insignificant scout and up toward where she'd been in the position to become Imperator.

After their run the day before yesterday, the Immortan had publicly praised Furiosa, suggesting the other Imperators and crews should look to her for an example. In the months since she'd been given the War Rig they had mostly ignored her, but she'd known to expect something from the other Imperators after such praise. It hadn't really been a surprise when the atmosphere in the pits had been different too. Where before, boys from the other crews had seemed honoured for a chance to go up against her - a punch from her metal hand was somewhat of a rite of passage - now they'd been gunning for her. Looking to curry favour with their Imperators. There weren't many rules in the Pits, but last night was the first time she'd felt that might be a problem.

"How am I going to stay sharp?"

"Aw Boss, you know me 'n Guzzer 'n Sprocket will give you a good scrap," he said. Continued with a chuckle, “And the others can give it a good try.”

"Boys get into trouble?" she said. She'd left after two bouts, but most of the crew had stayed.

Ace gave a waggle with his hand that translated to, _'A little, but none of your concern'._

He looked like something was on his mind though, something he'd rather not say but that was weighing on him. She leaned up against the corridor wall and waited.

"Word's got 'round you have us in your quarters after runs," he grumbled finally. "T'other Boys've got some fucked up ideas about—" he looked away, "you rewardin' us."

Furiosa sighed. Her quarters were up near where the other Imperators were quartered. 'Word getting round' could only have come from them. It wasn't like Imperators taking crew to their quarters was new or strange, but that was a dynamic the War Boys understood - getting a Use. She didn't think that any of them had a concept of a woman getting enjoyment out of anything sexual, so where another Imperator would clearly have gotten Use out of his crew, in her case it had to be that she was buying their loyalty by letting them Use her.

Not that she had known much different, until a few runs ago. Having the crew in her quarters after a run had started purely for the calm it gave her to know none of them were shivering down on the ledges in the Skin Shop, subject to the Organic Mechanic's 'mercies'. It had been an easy step after that drunken night at Gastown proved her crew to be... reliable.

From there it had developed into the animal comfort of warm, trusted, safe bodies around her, of hearing breathing around her, of being soothed from a restless dream by a hand lightly stroking her hair.

It hadn't been until she'd woken from a different sort of restless dream, her body pressed up against Sprocket and her hips rocking without her input, that the idea that this could be different, could be more, had even occurred. And it hadn't been until Sprocket had begged her to let him touch her - really touch her - that she'd had the first clue what that might be like.

What it had been like; being held, being cradled against Ace while Sprocket kissed and licked and nipped at her neck, her breasts and her stomach and - _oh_ \- his face between her - _ohh_ \- and her entire body trembling and her nails digging into somebody's forearm her mouth making sounds her face wet with tears her hips making decisions of their own and _OH_ —

Afterward she'd felt raw, taken apart like an engine, all her delicate inner workings exposed, and she'd hidden her face against Ace's skin and felt blindly for Sprocket, pulled him up against her and hid between their bulk, let them be her shields until she felt like she had a skin covering her again.

When she invited them to her quarters her crew touched her with gentleness she hadn't known Warboys to be capable of— hadn't known any man capable of. Always watching her face, listening to her every breath, her every sound to see what she liked, what she didn't. The words "Shine, Boss?" whispered, murmured against her skin, waiting for a yea or nay. Always holding her hand, so she could squeeze if her voice refused. She trembled under their touches, leaned into their hands, gasped into their skin. She was wholly unused to such reverence, such care, not sure how to process, how to _feel_.

The idea that she might offer the use of her body as a reward for their loyalty was so far from the truth it would be laughable if it wasn't so infuriating, and judging by the state of Ace's knuckles, she wasn't the only one to think so.

He saw her look at his hands, and shrugged, unrepentant. “Most Imperators stop headin’ to the Pits eventually, anyway.”

"I'll stay out of it," she promised after a pause, pushing away from the wall.

* * *

“Hey Crank!”

“Crank!”

“Where you goin’? Come on!”

“Tapping out of this one, guys,” Crank mutters as he peels off from his old pack and heads for crew. “Got more practice scheduled.”

“Ugh, he’s been like that since he’d got picked.”

“Thinks he’s too good for us now?”

“Better things to _do_ , what with that Imperator of his.”

The ugly laughter rises up behind him and Cranks fist curls up. They'd always had such fun back when he was one of them, the laughter easy and warm. He doesn’t understand why he feels so uncomfortable now, while it’s the same things they’ve always said. And Crank—

It’s not even like he’d ever accepted the Boss’ invites for Use, never been interested though he’d been honored by her asking. He liked giving her a hand to clutch at sometimes, or being a shoulder to curl up against. Her or crew. It’s unfathomably nice curling up with everyone; he’d never woken up feeling so rested, so strong, so centered.

He doesn't feel centered now. He leaves even as they keep on speaking, trying to one-up each other in their disrespect towards his Imperator.

A War Pup’s fiddling with a crossbow nearby, head tilted away as if wishing not to listen but afraid to leave. When Crank passes next to him the pup meets his eyes, and holds up his arms.

Crank lifts him, and carries them both away.

* * *

Eventually it's no longer something to sneer at. It just is. Fours years as Imperator and her gaze has the authority to shut down a newer Imperator when he sees the group of War Boys she leads to her quarters. Four years and her crew has acquired the status of legends; their habits mimicked and filtering through the Citadel in vague echoes. It's no longer the same crew— she still reaches for Sprocket sometimes, on reflex, and knows Ace does too. Some of the youngsters she started with are old hands now, steady and sure.

She no longer trembles, when they touch her, unless it's a good trembling.

* * *

"Boss, will you tell us about the Immortan? What’s he like?"

Furiosa froze halfway to the seat they'd kept free for her. She’d been looking forward to meeting up with her crew, their warm camaraderie and regard. Looking forward to letting their chatter wash over her, their shoulders against hers bolstering her. She’d wanted it more than a drink of aqua-cola. Her throat felt like she'd walked six days through the Wasteland— it always did after reporting to the Immortan directly.

The speaker, one of the newest members of crew, got a swift thwack over the back of the head, and Morsov yanked him close to hiss, louder than he'd perhaps intended, " _We don't ask the Boss about the Immortan!_ She used to have the honour of being his _Wife_.”

Furiosa sees the table grow quiet as the rest of the crew catches the words and heads turn towards the conversation.

“She _misses_ him, don't make her re-live her loss."

She watches as the new member look horrified and sketch a V8, then every member of her team nod and mirror the salute a moment later.

Furiosa felt her world shift under her feet. Felt like a wall she’d been leaning against has just disappeared.

_What was the Immortan like?_ More diseased than he had been, his breath still just as vile as she remembered. It always took an effort not to throw up at feeling it puffed into her face.

She was still, always, so grateful that he'd never known her name, when she was in the Vault. He'd called her Feisty, as if her resistance was merely a way to entertain him, and she'd let her hate for that name fuel her. Feisty with the long, curly blond hair he'd like to yank on. Feisty who he'd unceremoniously thrown to the Wretched, where she had taken back her own name. He'd never connected that girl with shorn-headed, one-armed, war-painted Furiosa who had drawn his attention in the senior War Boy ranks some ten years later.

She was sure Joe didn't know, because he would have rubbed it in her face every possible opportunity had he known. 

It felt like the innocent question and the instant reply had knocked the dust off her air intake valves. This was the lie she had built her team on; the lie that she worshipped the Immortan Joe as much as they did, that she was still so devastated at having failed in her duty to be a Wife to him that she couldn't bear to speak of him. A lie of omission, but still a lie.

It had seemed the safest thing, back then. The only way she could affect to worship Joe without having to speak about him. It hadn't seemed like it could harm, anyway; war rig crews had a high turnover. She'd never expected her crew to turn out to be so strong, never expected to rely on their presence, never expected to bond so closely with some of them, to grow such attachment.

She watched them make the V8 sign and suddenly knew with absolute clarity that everything she had, every bond she had built with the men in front of her, would collapse the instant they learned of her true feelings about the Immortan. 

It had been such a relief to speak with Angharad and Miss Giddy and the others. To be able to say, out loud, how every single time she had to report directly to Joe she felt like she needed to scour her skin with sand. Saying the words, hearing them echoed back by the other women, had relieved a pressure she hadn't know was inside her.

Sitting in their little circle and listening to the women speak had filled a space inside her Furiosa hadn't known was empty. Keeping up the facade with her crew suddenly seemed so much heavier now, an impossible load she'd never really noticed before. She could manage it most days, but she could feel herself seeking out more moments of quiet, shake her head at silent offers of closeness. 

"Boss?"

She shook herself, looked into Ace's concerned face.

"I need— some time alone," she choked out, already turning away. Knew that he'd be concerned. Knew that he'd be thinking she was going to her quarters to mourn her lost status as Wife. Suddenly she couldn't be here for a second longer.

"Boss, wait," he said, and held out a cup of Aqua Cola and two mealworm biscuits, her evening rations. "We'll stay out of your hair," Ace said, and she knew he meant he'd make sure none of the crew would come to her quarters tonight. It was tradition, by now, that they came the night after a run, so this break would tell them all they'd fucked up and fucked up badly.

She was already feeling guilty about that. They tended to take it hard, and it wasn't their fault that she couldn't be honest with them.

Furiosa accepted the proffered rations, because it seemed the easiest thing to do, and stalked out of the mess hall before she could suffocate under Ace's kindness, and at knowing that it was built on a lie.

The women had talked about an escape plan, at her last visit to the vault. It was still in the early stages, more hope than plan, but she'd naively thought she could take her crew with her, that they would help her, that she could trust them with this.

Now she knew better. They would never cooperate with her if she acted against the Immortan. And if she left them behind they would be reviled as traitors, assumed to have known of her plan.

She could be the Furiosa who protected her crew and kept them alive or the Furiosa who took the Immortan's wives and made a run for the Green Place, but she could not be both.

* * *

The Gatekeeper shifts his weight away from resting fully on his scythe as the lift lowers, bringing them ever closer to the Wretched. Roughly three body lengths away from their reach, he holds his fist up and the lift halts.

The War Rig is coming up on the last stretch; sentries report that the convoy’s come back complete, all vehicles accounted for. Once again.

The Gatekeeper curls his hand tighter against his scythe, he watches as the Wretched clear space around the Rig and its outriders, and he doesn’t know if they maintain distance because of the numbers and strength of the crew that comes back or from something else. It’s hard to guess at what the Wretched are thinking at any particular time, mindless animals that they are. Often, the scouts and raiders who arrive get crowded; perhaps that’s because their hauls are uninventoried and the bloodbags they bring are curiosities; the whole event’s a mad chaos. _The moment you sit on your heels, unwary, and those below will tear you apart without reason._

But for Imperator Furiosa’s runs, the Wretched are oddly tame, eyes intent, and the War Pups are already pressing up against the ledges, ready to haul off and inventory the goods. The Gatekeeper sees the Imperator Prime at the water lever, watching for Corpus’s signal on the tower across from him, ready to release the water in celebration if it’s yet another successful trade mission with no loss of stock.

It often is, for Furiosa’s runs.

All three stone towers are buzzing with anticipation, from the foot of the stone to the vague peaks, like energy under the skin. _It’s Furiosa,_ the words hum through the ground and the air. He’d not felt this energy in over 10,000 days, since Immortan Joe stopped leading the raids himself. He feels this energy also in the Gatekeepers around him.

The Gatekeeper scowls behind his hood and strikes the butt of his scythe against the metal. _They need to focus._

He strikes it again, and the sound bells into the valley between the rocks, and everything slows down.

The War Rig stops, in front of the space where the platform will land.

The cab door opens.

The Imperator Furiosa leans out and raises her metal hand in acknowledgement, in their routine call and response.

A cheer goes up in the Citadel as the Gatekeeper signals for the lift to be lowered, with a sweep of his scythe, and the Imperator catches his eyes somehow, though the hood, and nods.

The cowled man nods back. He likes a person that knows their duty, and their place.

* * *

Morsov is glad, following the crew up to their Imperator’s room, that their Boss had forgiven them for speaking out of turn that one night. It’d been many days before she’d even looked them in the eye after that, and many more still before she’d honored them with a touch.

She seemed as frantic for it as they were, after too long without, and she ran through each of them as wanted it; like something elemental and fiery and endless.

_Heh, not a one can keep up, can we?_ Morsov thinks as he passes out, _’s a good thing that Boss has all of us here._

His last memory is his Imperator held safe in a nest of bodies, breathing deep and shuddery, eyes flickering from one crewmember to another, intense and unknowable.

* * *

Furiosa wakes up at the dawn’s light in her eyes and blinks up slow at the ceiling. One long unhurried breath expands her ribs and as her chest moves the arms across it shift as well. One crewmate shifts sleepily to curl up against her side. A pair of faces press harder against her shoulder. Several sleepy grumbles rise up as the movement cascades through the bodies around her. She tries not to form the names in her head but she knows the origin of each sound in this room.

She untangles herself slowly, with a minimum of fuss, and dresses.

“I guess I should get up too,” Ace mutters with a groan.

“Get some sleep,” Furiosa says quietly over her shoulder, “We’re going on a run today.”

He lifts a hand in acknowledgement and worms back into the pile of warmth, trusting in her to wake him when needed.

It pits her stomach.

Furiosa closes the door behind her quietly. Walks down the hall. Leans into an alcove and knocks her head back against the rock and sighs.

“The weather vanes say storm’s coming,” Miss Giddy whispers beside her.

Furiosa stares into the middle distance.

“It’s agreed then? You will take them? You’re ready?”

Her jaw hurts. _Everything hurts. “_ The plans are in place,” she says instead.

The sun claws up the sky.

* * *


	5. Belay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belay: To protect a roped climber from falling
> 
> _(at least this day no new ghosts will chase him)_

Max unpacked the bike the Vuvalini gave him with quick motions and quicker decisions of whether to keep or discard. They were loading up the War Rig for the run back to the Citadel and they needed to consider weight and speed and what they’d be able to carry if they had to move fast. The work was slow, because there were many bags, many more than he’d had to deal with in very many days, the items almost claustrophobic as they’d been pressed into his hands. But perhaps no more claustrophobic than the endless Plains of Silence. The salt choked the air even now that they were at its border instead of in its midst, and he was glad to be free of it. There was nothing but a slow death in that direction.

(at least this day no new ghosts will chase him)

He looked over at Furiosa, who was disassembling the packs while sitting on one of the low-slung bike trailers. She’d paused, staring at the War Rig; Nux was standing by it, and offered Cheedo a hand up into it. She placed her fingers in his palm like some half-remembered story-girl, noble, and he provided support as she ascended. When the War Boy turned to offer his hand to Toast, she only scrambled up the Rig herself. Nux smiled in a friendly way in response and simply started handing up the bags that they couldn’t carry and still climb with.

“Hmm,” Max grunted, “Didn’t expect to see that.” A War Boy so gentle.

Furiosa turned to him, and measured him quietly. He held still for her, and arched an eyebrow, and she shook her head in reply, face turning to look at the sand.

Quietly, “They’re different, outside of war.”

Max made a rising little noise that was one part question and three parts disbelief. _Were they ever free of war?_

“Sometimes within war,” she conceded with a little tiredness, “if you're on their side.” Her hands worked, opening the packs with a bit more force.

Max had stopped moving, instinctively still, listening to the angry rustle of cloth and leather. He would not be surprised if something ripped.

Furiosa caught herself. Stilled with his stillness, and stopped moving too. Her hands fell to her lap, then she reached up with a brisk movement and spun the knob on her shoulderpiece all the way to a hard stop.

She seemed just the slightest bit smaller and it made Max feel awkward standing. He brought over the pack of dried food he’d been working on to her trailer and squatted, rummaging through the packs she’d just opened to combine similar items. He glanced briefly up at her, and then looked back down, letting her collect her thoughts.

“My crew would have died for me,” Furiosa finally admitted, “when we were on the same side.” She reached out and joined Max in his task. “They knew they would be awaited. They would have found it… chrome.”

From anyone else the words would have sounded like an excuse, from Furiosa they sounded like regret, like distaste. Max looked up and met her gaze and in her eyes her ghosts screamed, too, _you let us die_

He knew, as her eyes drifted itself back into middle-distance that she, too, had family who asked her, _where are you?_

Neither of them really knew how to answer because they knew the real question was, **_who_** _are you?_

Max has become a part of the waste, one who destroys and one who finds a means to survive and walk away, even if it means someone else doesn’t. He remembers a handsaw, guzzoline, a deadline, and knows that the one who bleeds isn’t even necessarily the one who’d made him bleed first. Knows that somewhere in him, he doesn’t really mind. He remembers the old man he’d left at the side of the road, sunken eyed and frail, the children he’d let fend for themselves in a taped together city with taped together hope, the little dark haired Glory who’d fell because the violence splashed onto her and Max’s never enough to halt it or curb it or direct it meaningfully because at one point some part of him started screaming— and hasn’t stopped except for choking on it. Sometimes he comes back to himself, bloodied, and can barely remember how, or why, or words, or reason.

Whenever he looks at Furiosa, her eyes look like they know what that’s like, her mouth set like determined calm, her shoulders held like they wait for the violence, and Max knows what that looks like because his shoulders are the same. The ‘who’ that their ghosts keep asking for keeps drifting further and further away from those that would care to ask.

_Did it matter?_

For once Max paused the thought. He closed the drawstring to his bag. Looked up at the laughter and the cheerful singing of the women, recounting old happiness in ballads as they repacked their bikes for speed and for war. Capable was scrambling around the lookouts with two of the Vuvalini, and Cheedo and Toast were pulling things Nux handed up into the cab. The Dag was ferrying items to and fro the various bikes; armfuls of mismatched items, seeds and anti-seeds, boltcutters and chains. The Valkyrie was with two others, checking their weapons, occasionally belting out the chorus of the song or an especially vibrant line.

_Yes, it mattered._

Her ghosts were not as ephemeral as his; her family lived on in these women. They would still care to ask. He knew that they were in for a hard bloody day, but at least there was some chance in that direction, compared to endless dryness in the salt. A single hard day, versus one hundred and sixty hard days of a long slow death.

He would only need to ferry them to the Citadel, Max thought. The old and the new, Many Mothers with their seeds and the girls who knew how to temper war. And Furiosa, whose crew had died for her, yes, she would know how to temper war as well.

Max turned to look at Furiosa but she had followed his gaze and was looking at the women too. And while her expression was resigned, her eyes were lighter than he’d yet seen.

He thought they could be lighter still.

Max found that he would like to help get her there. And thought maybe his ghosts would stop urging him to get back to her if he can see her off; strong, and light, and safe.

* * *

She’s deathly still in his arms and his mind is a greek chorus of _no_. She needs to breathe so he gives her a knife, needs blood so he gives her that too, needs something to hold to, to keep her awake.

 _Max_ , he tells her.

In this new world, names are totems, are sacred, are strength.

He would like to give her what strength he has. It’s never enough, but he gives it, would have kept giving until long after the old Vuvalini warrior tells him he can't give more and detaches despite his protest the red line that goes from him to her.

He wants to tell her: _no, not yet. Her eyes aren’t open_. But he turns too quickly and fumbles against the car seat and they arrange his limbs despite himself and drape him with something soft. He blinks, and the sun has moved, the horizon’s changed.

He blinks again and Furiosa leans against his side, breathing lightly but smooth, and one of the girls - Cheedo, he thinks - is nudging at his hand with a piece of jerky.

He accepts it.

* * *

Max glances down at the Wretched cheering for the wives and for Furiosa. He glances up at the various ports and docks of the Citadel and the white-bodied War Pups are overwhelming in numbers compared to their elders, children who were cheering on the Walking Men on their giant treadmills. When he looks over at the water, he sees figures up top controlling the stream, lush. None of this was his doing, directly, and Max thinks that Furiosa will be fine with all this support behind her. There’s nothing else he can give her. Each of the wives around her are standing tall, and when Max slides backwards they shift to brace her and help keep her upright.

He hangs off the edge of the lift, and drops.

He barely misses a sun-baked man, and crouches below the tide of people for a moment, getting his bearings.

_over here Max!_

Glory calls, and Max thinks, _Wait_.

He surges out of the humanity and looks up and when Furiosa finds him with her eyes, he knows what he was waiting for. She looks strong and weightless, like she’s stopped running.

 _That’s good,_ Max thinks, nodding.

She nods back as if agreeing, and acknowledging, and letting him go.

So Max leaves and follows Glory as she darts through the dunes. Towards where the Rig had fought the spiked cars, he realizes, and thinks that there’s probably some parts he’d be able to find there, and cobble together something to keep moving.

  
(he knows how to survive, and how to walk away.)


	6. Arête

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arête: a sharp outward facing corner created by glacial erosion on a steep rock face. A method of indoor climbing, in which one is able to use such as a corner as a hold.
> 
> _“Furiosa,” he yells, but it’s lost in the other voices and only she turns her head. When she tries to move towards him the Mothers both young and old cluck at her and sweep her onwards; after the confrontation with Corpus’s men she’s at the last of her strength. It galls her._
> 
> _“Imperator,” he tries, but that only makes the women tighten up formation and funnel her faster towards safety, eyes darting around._
> 
> _“Boss,” he asks, finally, formally, as they try to close the door to her room on him. And that makes her finally shove out from well-meaning hands, because she knows that tone. It’s one that Ace adopted, and that all her crew learned._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graphic violence/gore warning: Furiosa did some pretty horrible things under Joe's rule, and some of them with the best intentions. If you want to skip the graphic/gore part, skip the italicized section that starts with _She once had a War Boy named Afterburn_

“Oh, but you shouldn’t have done that Furiosa. Slowly now—!”

“What were we going to do? Leave them there?” _a sharp hiss_

“Steady. There’s the rest of us too who don’t need to worry about reopening stitches, and your boy’s gone off into the wastes so its not like you have blood to spare.”

“He doesn’t either, at this point. And he’s not—” _another hiss_ “ Wha—why are we going _there_?”

“Duck under her arm, there, give ‘er some support— The pups say there's supplies, and I don't have clean gauze. “

“I don't want— Gale, _no_.”

“We won't leave you there, Chick, I promise. Just want to stitch you up and then we'll move you up to your room...”

* * *

Ace has been in the Mechanic’s Skin Shop for… he’s not exactly sure, but it’s sure as hell a lot longer than he’s ever been here before. The Organic Mechanic does whatever bodywork he deems necessary and useful, and then kicks you out to either heal or die. He doesn’t keep you around. If he does, that’s not necessarily a good thing.

The Organic Mechanic isn’t here. The two War Pup assistants don’t seem to know what to do with themselves, and for lack of anything better to do, Ace is still on the ledge where they parked him after he stumbled in.

The Citadel is emptied because they are after his Imperator. His Boss. Furiosa, who worked with him for years. Who shared herself with him in all the ways that count, or so he thought. Furiosa, whom he trusted in more than the usual alignment of goals. More than trusting her to act in the interest of Immortan Joe’s goals, he’d trusted _her_ \- to speak to him, let him help her in whatever way he could, to not spend him needlessly, to witness him when the moment came.

His ribs hurt, and being short of breath is exhausting, but there’s some sort of uproar outside, and the next time he’s able to focus is when several people enter the workshop. Several _women_. In their midst they have –

He doesn’t understand how she could possibly be back, she _betrayed the Immortan_ , she should be either dead or very far away. And yet here she is, eye swollen shut, face and side bloody, leaning on the shoulders of two older women and surrounded by war pups.

She sees him, and he can’t breathe at all for a moment, watching her hand stretching out to him as they lead her past his ledge and into the inner room of the workshop.

* * *

It’s Rachet who catches up with them, skin flaking with painted white on a surface that looks raw and scratched and sandpapered.

“Furiosa,” he yells, but it’s lost in the other voices and only she turns her head. When she tries to move towards him the Mothers both young and old cluck at her and sweep her onwards; after the confrontation with Corpus’s men she’s at the last of her strength. It galls her.

“Imperator,” he tries, but that only makes the women tighten up formation and funnel her faster towards safety, eyes darting around.

“ _Boss,_ ” he asks, finally, formally, as they try to close the door to her room on him. And that makes her finally shove out from well-meaning hands, because she knows that tone. It’s one that Ace adopted, and that all her crew learned.

“I know him,” Furiosa insists, and wobbles towards the War Boy. And he looks—

Looks—

_She once had a War Boy named Afterburn get an injury on his arm during a run. It’d been gouged up with the rusted edge of a spiked car, and the wound turned sour. Between that and the increased nightfevers, the Organic Mechanic hadn’t wanted to waste a bloodbag on him. It didn’t take a Mechanic to see that his half-life was draining quick._

_Furiosa had led him out of the chop shop when she heard. Brought him to their crew’s sparring area near where their machines was held in readiness and practice, and the room was full. It was noise and trashtalk, sparring and banter, as she walked him to an open area and told him:_

“ _You’re off the next run.”_

_The noise dropped, one and two mouths paused, open._

_She said, “I need every perch staffed and reliable.”_

_The silence grew._

_Calmly, loudly, “You will never be Witnessed, there.”_

_His eyes were huge and liquid and there was a collective gasp. Every Boy had stilled, heads turned towards them._

_Furiosa repeated herself, gently, “You will never be Witnessed,_ _**there** _ _.” She tightened a belt and shifted subtly to a fighting stance and Afterburn had glanced at her feet then up at her face. And she nodded as his eyes glowed._

_He rushed her in a burst of speed, looking to bowl her over but she pushed her feet backwards in a sprawl, pushing his body down with her weight, moving with his forward momentum. She kneed him twice in the head, and with a steel clutch his head and a clench at his shoulder, spins him around on his bad side, until he was on his back, straddled, with her hand at his throat and her metal fist, raised like a hammer, chambered._

_The room rises around them like a cup, like an arena, she saw him glance around at the War Boys roaring, for them, for him._

“ _WITNESS ME!” Afterburn shouted, face alight._

_Furiosa brought her left fist down through his nose, his skull a brief pop of resistance, until the weight of her punch was stopped when it rang against rock, the reverberation going up her arm like the chorus around the room._

“ _WITNESS!”_

_Her gut rose with the sound, like a drop of aqua-cola rising before it slumps back down into the ripples of a pool. Like the growing red around her._

–Furiosa had once had a War Boy named Afterburn. His face had been frightened and relieved, resigned and delighted.

—Rachet’s face looks the same. He looks like she might reach into his gut and grab onto anything with meaning and tear it all out when she retreats. And he would be _glad_ for it.

She doesn’t want him to be glad for it. Furiosa suddenly feels the hollowness of the Citadel around her and knows that she’d gutted it herself. She thinks of the War Boy she’d once held a knife to in a War Rig, but the girls— she’d found them such _children_ — they stopped her from shredding Nux. In the end, they’d been right, Nux had contributed so much, and the idea of it makes her tilt sideways and wonder at everything she thought she knew. Could Afterburn have contributed too, despite draining so fast?

Furiosa had thought he couldn’t. Had thought she was granting him the best he could hope for when he had nothing more to give. It had made sense at the time, had seemed like a compassionate thing to do. Now the thought sits like blood in her lungs.

She hopes the Vuvalini can't read it on her face. She had liked to think that she’d retained part of herself in the long years of working for Joe, but maybe that was merely wishful thinking.

“Why do you look so surprised,” Kompass asks, tilting into the room, leaning his good shoulder carefully against the door. The other is in a sling.

Furiosa flicks her gaze between the two War Boys. Kompass had been first station lead, tactical in charge of protecting the produce segment of her Rig and cover for Ace when her second was otherwise occupied. Most likely he had been whisked right off the War Rig when she’d barreled into the storm.

“You must have known,” Kompass continues, harshly, “that there would be no place for us, if we survived and returned. If Immortan Joe found us after you’ve run.”

“But you’re here.” Furiosa replies carefully, watching carefully, holding herself carefully. She puts her hand out to stay any movement from the women, because they are _here_ instead of having met up with Joe’s war parties. That they chose to come back for, what? A life in hiding? An execution? A death unawaited? Instead of seeking out glory with Joe’s war parties and trying to take her down. She tries to steady her feet but the world feels uneven around her.

“Better to have a use than out wandering,” the War Boy spits. He waves off Capable’s cry that that war boys, too, aren’t things, “Better to know our purpose.”

“Kompass,” Rachet begins.

“We discussed this,” he hisses back, and rounds onto Furiosa, “You need to tell us _why_.”

Furiosa rocked back. (“ _Kompass_ —” Rachet tries.)

“Immortan— no, no he’s _not_ , isn’t he?— _Joe_ would not have let us live, after, and we would have Witnessed each other for it, it wouldn’t have mattered, but. _Why didn’t you tell us_?”

“You would have stopped me,” Furiosa says, her stomach folds like steel and her throat feels hammered.

“ _Yes_ , we _would have_ !” he shouts and the women surge forward but Kompass does too and Rachet intercepts him, but the War Boy keeps speaking, “We would have _stopped_ you and prevented—” he breaks off, looking angry, “ _Look_ at you.”

And Furiosa stumbles and Kompass shoves past Rachet before anyone can catch him, and, roaring in frustration, he ducks under her arm before her leg collapses under her. Rachet darts over and braces her other side awkwardly, being shorter and slighter, and between the two of them they lower her kneeling into the pile of blankets that is her bed.

The women look perplexed, hands stopped in midair and slowly retracted, and the Vuvalini’s eyes are all narrow and thoughtful as Kompass carefully crashes his head to a section of her temple marginally less bloody and blue.

“So _mediocre_ ,” he mutters. “ _Look at you_.”

Furiosa’s mouth twists up wryly, Kompass eases them down to her mattress while Rachet can't meet her eyes as he helps, “You’ll need to talk to Ace, he was on Organic's ledge.”

“I saw,” Furiosa rasps. She settles against Ace’s second, a soothing warm bulk as he keeps careful weight on her wounds. Rachet leans around them, pulling towards them more blankets. The sounds and motions soothes her in its familiarity even if she’d rarely been the recipient. Even if they’d never been so watched by outsiders.

Furiosa feels too drained to care.

“I’ll get him,” Dag says, “Twisted-faced smeg, saw him reaching, didn’t think that—” She eyes the pile of them for a second and leaves without continuing. Cheedo follows after her, with a last look, hand already reaching out for a hand that meets hers.

“How many—” Furiosa breathes at the same time that Capable asks, “Are there more of you?”

“What’s it to you?” Kompass barks back. Rachet rolls his eyes as he finished arranging the bedding.

“Furiosa’s injured,” the redhead says, “we have two of the Many Mothers, War Pups too young to do War—”

“Never too young,” Rachet says.

“Not on Furiosa’s level,” Toast scoffs, “And we’re learning but—”

“ ‘Not on Furiosa’s level’,” Kompass mimics. But concedes, “Not many who are.”

Furiosa feels a brief pang at that, but knows that she couldn’t have asked the fool to stay. Three times he’d left, and twice he returned on his own. She can’t keep him as an ally, as a thing; he will drift back to her if he was meant to.

It’s a bittersweet thought and she presses into it like a thumb against a muscle cramp, staring off into the middle distance.

Furiosa focuses back to the present at a soft sound, to see Capable and Toast exchanging looks with each other and the last of the Many. The Nightingale nods and steps towards the bed.

The old woman crouches down and places a canteen and a bag of jerky at the edge, staring down Furiosa’s crew. “Make sure she drinks and eats. Let us know if she starts bleeding again or if you don’t know what’s wrong.” Gale breaks off and says, “I may not always know what to do, but at least I know what’s what. There should be _someone_ in these rock heaps that can help us figure out the rest.”

Rachet nods at the elder and edges his arm under Furiosa’s head for a pillow. The women leave as he drags her thin sheet up over them and angles himself so that she can rest her bruises on his less injured side. Furiosa's throat is tight.

The canteen’s presented to her and she takes a careful mouthful, but it doesn’t help anything but her parchedness. She shakes her head at the jerky after just a nibble. They shift closer, preparing to rest.

“Ace?” She manages.

She feels Kompass shake his head against her shoulder. “He’ll keep.”

“You need the rest more,” Rachet explains.

Since it’s difficult at this point even to speak further, Furiosa would agree. She blinks her agreement, because nodding is too much, but between one blink and the next—

she sleeps.

* * *

“Ace.”

He jolts into wakefulness and immediately groans. He heals fast, always has, but his ribs are gonna need more than three days to be all chrome again.

“That’s you, right?”

The woman is tall and slim and sharp, shiny and chrome in the same way a dagger can be. To be admired perhaps, but to be treated with caution. She’s wearing boots and canvas pants, a wrapped top. Ace knows the story is that the Imperator stole Joe’s wives, but it’s hard to imagine this knife-woman passively undergoing anything.

(It’s hard to imagine Furiosa stealing anybody didn’t want to be stolen, not unless it was at the Immortan’s command, but he’s no longer as confident that he knows Furiosa.)

“Yeah,” he rasps out, rolling himself into a painful sitting position. He wonders what she could want from him.

“Furiosa’s asking for you,” she says, making a gesture for him to precede her.

Ace heaves himself to his feet, trying to tamp down on the urge to cough.

She makes him walk ahead of her, which is unpleasant and makes him wince every time he has to pause on the many stairs. If Furiosa wants to see him he’s probably not about to get stabbed in the back, but his skin is still crawling with this unfamiliar, hostile woman eying him like she’s not sure if she wants him dead.

“How’s the boss?” he wheezes, wanting her to talk.

“What’s it to you, War Boy?” she says sharply.

He stops and actually looks around at that, sees her at a careful few paces away, giving him an intensely skeptical look. There’s another woman behind her now, younger and wary, a colourful headband holding back her dark hair.

Ace doesn’t actually know what to say. What’s Furiosa to him? He’s her _Ace_ , has been for years - her second, her go-to. Nobody has ever questioned why he should care about her situation or her wellbeing - it’s so blindingly obvious that he wouldn’t know how to explain it.

Especially to somebody who can’t have known Furiosa for more than a couple of days.

“She looked—bad,” he says, because the glimpse he got of her was... as ghost pale as he’d ever seen her, like back when she still wore the war paint, and the faces of the women with her had looked grim. He hadn’t seen her leave the Organic Mechanic’s workshop— must have slipped asleep himself.

“She asked for you,” the dagger repeats, and Ace manages not to huff in dismissal, because his ribs would make him regret that. He only rolls his eyes; Furiosa asking after people means nothing. He’s convinced the boss would ask after people on her dying breath.

The knife woman tilts her head as if conceding the point, and steps up next to him, gesturing for him to start moving again. She’s still a careful arms’ length away, but it feels a little less hostile.

“I don’t know,” she finally says.

The younger woman says, soft enough to be a whisper, “She’s real hurt.”

"She was already hurt and then she.. she fought with Corpus' men," the dagger says.

It strikes him suddenly that these strange, shiny women are worried for Furiosa too. That they’re _protective_ , in their way. _Huh._

When they finally reach the hallway with Furiosa’s quarters, there are two pups in front of her door. Guarding, he thinks. They whisper, but the blonde woman with him just nods at them.

Her quarters must have been tossed when they discovered her betrayal, it’s like a twister went through, but all Ace can see is the pale face in the bed. Furiosa is not a small woman - not as tall or broad as him, but she doesn't need to be, she's an unstoppable force made of coiled steel and brimming with fire, imposing enough to stare down the most chromed up War Boys. Imposing enough to intimidate even Rictus.

She looks small and pale tucked between the bulk of Kompass and Rachet, like a salvaged engine that's just barely idling, and any desire he might have had to shout at her until she shouts back and explains herself to him disappears.

Ace sinks down by the foot of the mattress, sweeps aside some broken possessions to make space to lie down. His ribs ache and his breath comes as short, painful wheezing.

“Here,” says a soft voice, and it’s the younger woman, the one with dark hair and wide eyes.

She’s holding out a cushion to him, weight on the balls of her feet like she’s ready to dart back. He accepts it slowly and nods his thanks, breathing a little easier when he’s propped himself up on it. He extends one arm onto the mattress, cupping his hand around Furiosa’s slender ankle, and doesn’t even notice when the women leave the room.


	7. Corner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corner: An inside corner of rock, the opposite to an arête 
> 
> _“Boss, boss,” somebody murmurs, a point of calm and a broad, calloused, cool hand cupping her face. “It’s just us.”_

She remembered their second raid. She remembered how they came back stumbling, how she watched as five of her boys were delivered to the Organic Mechanic, how she’d already sent the Ace off to look for replacements because while the five will need downtime, there were four more lost to the desert. But mostly because she couldn’t stand to be next to him, bearing his understanding.

She’d followed them in to the Organic Mechanic and the room felt at once large and small, the shafts of blue light falling on the broken like the sun itself was watching. Furiosa leaned against the altar or a pillar or a wall, watching the Mechanic as he worked. The disgusting man felt her gaze, and leered back a hello.

“Pay attention to your work,” she snapped. He’d laughed as three, four, six, ten arms grew from him to work on her boys, to sew up or to snap bones into place, wrapped ribs, stapled here and there, and gave it all a casual white dusting. Five War Pups stepped up as one, to attend the wounded, their arms thin and bodies small and cold. _Useless,_ she’d thought, _her crew needed to be warm_. The coughing in the bloodbag room echoed its way around the stones, as did the moans of the dying and of the ferals, hung. There’s no place for her boys here.

The Mechanic stalls, eyeing her, saying something about keeping them all here, ‘for observation’. His hand curls around the back of a white-painted neck, like he had a right to. Like they were _his_.

“They’re wasting space,” Furiosa had snapped, “get them up.” Her crew, injured and not, looked up at her in fear. “ _Now_.”

The injured were lifted and those that could walk stumbled after her, or were carried. Flashes of the tunnels ran by, leaking pipes, fetid smells, the sound of rocks falling. She felt like she was moving through sand, too slow. Furiosa reached her room and pushed through and they’d paused at her door like a wall.

It was silent here. The air was clear and fresh. There was no echoes of coughing or of death. Her crew looked around themselves with surprise on their faces.

“Sit them down.” She did not have time for this.

Furiosa went to her alcoves and found an extra length of thin pipe she’d been thinking of working into a spare arm. It flickered back and forth from steel to bone in her hand. She passed it to the war boy attending the one with the broken arm.

“Use this to splint it.”

They looked at her blankly, at the bone-and-pipe and then at her face. Furiosa huffed in impatience and, ripping a length from her bedding, her clothing, her skin, wrapped the forearm against her bone herself.

She nodded at her mattress, for them to lie down, “Heal, I’ll need you on the next run.” Her bed had spilled large somehow, like their eyes, in the way that dreams do, and Furiosa watched herself suddenly surrounded and cupped by bodies and warmth as she’d pressed a white powdered head to her collarbone and murmured, “Rest.”

A hand was on her ankle—

Furiosa wakes up.

For a long moment everything is warm and familiar and comforting, and she sighs—

Her lungs burn, it feels like she’s breathing water, and she fights to surface, clawing for handholds.

There’s an explosion of sound and movement around her, and then there are hands on her arms and weight holding down her legs, a hand behind her head, and before the panic can fully register the hands are lifting her, raising her to the surface.

She hears a terrible, animal sound of pain and realises it’s her own breathing.

“Hey, hey,” says a low voice, and another, “Get her— give her— !” and there’s movement again and talking in faraway, hollow voices and somebody peels her hand from the handhold she’d found and she flails for grip she can not--she _can_ _not—_

“Boss, boss,” somebody murmurs, a point of calm and a broad, calloused, _cool_ hand cupping her face. “It’s just us.”

She moves - is moved - and then there’s support behind her back, a warm, breathing body to lean against, and the instinctive urge to fight her way up and _out_ fades as her breathing eases.

“You with us now, Boss?” the same low, calm voice asks, and she finds the forearm of the hand that is against her face, and squeezes the thick, corded muscle in answer. “That’s it, nice an’ easy, Boss.”

The weight on her legs lifts away, and she shifts a little more comfortably against whoever’s propping her up.

“...Ace?” she mouthes, not able to put breath behind it. She hears a shallow, rattling sigh, feels the air against her face. 

“Yeah, yeah, still got your Ace,” he says softly. “Despite your best efforts. We’ll—” she feels his thick fingers wipe moisture from her cheek. “We’ll talk about that later.”

* * *

Somewhere she hears:

_Her fever’s gettin’ worse._

_It’s her body, fighting infection. The fight with Corpus’ retainers re-opened her wounds. We closed it but— ah it’s too late for regrets. You must keep her warm, let her sweat it out. And keep her hydrated._

_Hydrated?_

_Topped off with Aqua-cola._

_And change her dressings often. Let it breathe a bit._

_Like an engine._

_...yes, both fuel and air. But tell me if she runs much hotter than this. Feel around her neck, yes like that._

_Miss Gale, she’ll get better though, right?_

_Boss is strong, you shut your mouth Rachet._

Furiosa mentally smiles at that, and drifts off again to the sound of her Ace’s snores.


	8. Flute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flute: A usually insecure fin or flake of rock or ice. The grooves on a drill bit. An instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening.  
>  __  
> “Who is she?” Ace asked after the woman left. He was stretched out next to Furiosa, torso a little elevated on a cushion. He had his head turned so he could see her in profile. _Who is she to you?_

Ace woke with the back of his neck prickling, the feeling of somebody watching him. When he opened his eyes, a woman was standing a few paces from the bed. Older, dressed in an unfamiliar way, and with the bearing of a commander. She had a rifle slung across her back.

“Need to check on my girl there, didn’t want to startle you fellas,” she said.

Ace grunted, unsure what to do with this. He thought he recognised her from the women who had brought Furiosa to the Mechanic’s workroom, before, but he wasn’t sure. He was vaguely aware that Furiosa’s arrival - rumour was the Immortan was dead, and Ace thought he’d have to be for Furiosa to be still alive - heralded major upheaval at the Citadel, but exactly what that meant he wasn’t sure, and it galled him.

Furiosa was propped up by Kompass, leaning against his chest and seemingly at ease. Her breath was short but without the rattle that had panicked them all, Furiosa included, so much earlier. After the earlier rearrangement when she’d fought both them and herself for breath, Ace had been too tired to move back to the ledge and simply sunk down where he was, sitting at the foot end of the bed with his feet stretched out along Kompass’ hip.

He nudged Kompass with his foot.

Kompass woke, and Ace just gestured at the woman, not having enough breath to explain it. Luckily Kompass was quick on the uptake. He patted Furiosa’s hand, and she stirred.

“Boss, there’s a... an Organic Mechanic here wants to look at you.”

The strange woman frowned fiercely.

“Don’t call me that, sonny. Never met the man and I hate him already. No respect for the human body. _I’m_ a _healer_.”

Kompass gave her a startled look, and repeated the unfamiliar word. “A... a healer, boss.”

“Gale,” Furiosa rasped softly, and the woman smiled.

“The very one, chick.” Her voice warmed considerably, and Furiosa’s lips twitched into the distant hint of a smile. “Can I have a look at you?”

Furiosa hummed with a tiny nod. The Ace found himself tensing in readiness, and the others shifted too.

“That all right with these fellas around or should I boot them out for a bit?”

Ace and Kompass both bridled. They might both be injured, but that didn’t mean—!

The woman had the kind of expression that said she would have a good go at punting them out if Furiosa gave the word.

“ ‘s all right,” Furiosa murmured.

Ace blinked, because this.. this didn’t seem like the Boss. Furiosa didn’t just placidly agree to medical care. She could not have known this woman more than two days.

That this Mechanic asked the _injured_ if she wanted others in the room was just as strange. Ace had never heard the Organic Mechanic ask an injured anything; it would be like asking an engine which part it thought was defective. 

Ace remembered back when she’d first become Imperator and he’d discovered that she would rather crawl into a cool alcove to die of a snakebite before she would go to the Organic Mechanic. He’d found her and pulled her out of the dark recess in the rock to carry her to the Mechanic’s workshop himself, all the while cursing him and struggling weakly in his grip.

The Mechanic was never pleasant, never curious, and brutally honest in what he was able to do with War Boy bodies and what wasn’t worth his efforts. Getting his attention meant you were still worth fixing. The Ace didn’t understand why she would avoid a tune up. But seeing the way the Organic Mechanic had looked at her had explained a lot.

The Mechanic had given Furiosa an oily smile and put his hand on her hip even though the snake bite was on her arm.His fearless new Imperator had frozen up in Ace’s arms like a feral in headlights, gone completely still and tense like she was caught between fight and flight. She'd looked like she was going to be sick.

The Mechanic either had not noticed or not cared, and gone on about how good it would be to get his hands on her again and how he would be taking _very_ good care of her.

It had made Ace’s skin crawl.

He had taken the liberty to spontaneously expand his job description, and decided that it now included staying by his Imperator’s side while she was getting medical care. When he’d had to go he’d sent for Sprocket, and they’d worked out a system on-the-fly to ensure that one of the crew was always in the room with her. The Mechanic had been deeply annoyed with this, but none of them had budged, and the naked relief in the Imperator’s eyes whenever she woke and found one of them in the room had been worth it.

To have this ‘healer’ woman accepted without protest now goes against many hundred-day’s habit.

The woman stepped closer and leaned in, half over Kompass, to examine Furiosa. Felt her heartbeat, listened to her lungs. Then, with a glance at Ace, Kompass, and the half-awake Rachet, bared the boss’s midriff and examined the two bandaged stab wounds. They tensed in preparation to move Furiosa away from her touch. The woman only eyed them briefly and continued her examination, humming in a way Ace thought meant that the situation was acceptable.

When she was done she re-dressed the wounds and covered the Boss back up. Then she took a glass bottle with mother’s milk from the bag she had slung across her body, and put it in Furiosa’s hand, and leaned in to press her forehead gently against the Imperator’s. 

“A couple of women send you this with their fondest greetings.”

Furiosa hummed in sleepy acknowledgement.

Ace knew this meant something, something important about the power shift that was going on in the Citadel right now, but he didn’t have enough information to know exactly what it meant. It frustrated him— always knowing what was going on was part of his _job_.

“Holy mothers,” the woman suddenly said. Ace looked at Furiosa, worried, but the healer was looking at him. “No, don’t move. You were at the Organic Mechanic place,” she scowled, “did nobody bother to look at this?”

“Uh,” Ace rasped, unclear on what kind of response she was looking for, here.

She huffed. “Of course. I’ll come round with something to bind your ribs.”

Ace knew his cracked ribs had to look all sorts of colours - he hadn’t been able to put on warpaint like normal, which would have hidden most of it. The real question was, why would this woman care?

“Bloody miracle you haven’t punctured your lung.” She pointed at Furiosa, then at Ace. “Neither of you is to leave this room for at least a week. Bed rest. Trip to the alcove with the sand bucket is the furthest you’ll move.” She looked Ace in the eyes, ”Is that clear?” the woman said, like she had the right to give orders like that.

“...yes, Gale,” Furiosa rasped, smiling a little. “Clear."

Ace was still baffled by this woman, her easily assumed authority and the way Furiosa bowed to it, _smiled_ at it, but he was willing to take her cue. He nodded slightly, and she seemed satisfied by this.

“Good. Now.” The woman looked at Kompass and Rachet. “Anybody else here just casually dying? I can’t be havin’ with that.”

* * *

“Who is she?” Ace asked after the woman left. He was stretched out next to Furiosa, torso a little elevated on a cushion. He had his head turned so he could see her in profile. _Who is she to you?_

“She’s of the Vuvalini. My people…” Furiosa murmured, her eyes closed.

“I thought _we_ were your people.”

Her eyes snapped open, and for a moment she looked _stricken_ , and Ace didn’t know if he felt pleased or dismayed, satisfied or guilty.

He was still new to the understanding that what he said mattered to her in more than just the practical.

“I grew up in a green place,” she whispered to the rock-hewn ceiling. Ace made a noise of interest, because he’d always assumed she’d come from among the Wretched. Just that admission seemed to have exhausted her though, because her eyes drifted shut and she was quiet for a while.

Ace idly wondered if that green place had motorbikes. And long guns. The Citadel had always had bikes, but the War Boys generally considered them inferior to cars, something you did time on until you were deemed worthy of a wheel. The Imperator though, when she'd first gotten the War Rig, had told off the outriders for that attitude. And when they'd been lukewarm about the merits of skillful riding, she'd taken one of their bikes on a training ride and showed them such riding as none of them had ever seen before.

She’d started slow, as if relearning a limb after a break, but then suddenly just _fanged it_ before they could catch their breath to heckle. Roared through the course with enough speed to take the scars right off the skin, cutting turns so tight it was a wonder she didn’t fireball out. She'd kneeled, shaky at first, then firm, then stood up and shot her crossbow, hitting the practice target perfectly from a hundred paces away.

She hadn't learned that as a scout or patrol rider, or he'd have heard about it.

The bike then barreled towards the group at top speed, a wild light to her gaze, but before they could decide to coward out and lunge away, she yanked the bike to the side to a perfect stop, spraying them all with dirt.

“ _So_?” she challenged them, flushed with excitement, but there'd been something in her eyes, something happy-sad he hadn't understood. Perhaps he did, now. Perhaps it had been the memory of a childhood in some mysterious green place.

“Were you traded?” he asked, when the rhythm of her breathing indicated that she’d surfaced.

“We were raided. I was... ripped away.”

Ace hummed in acknowledgement, letting that sink in. He’d always thought she’d come from the sea of unending refugees that washed up at the Citadel’s base, thought she had reached the highest place any woman could hope for, to bear the Immortan’s sons, and been dismissed for being unsuitable.

He’d always thought that her drive to make it among the War Boys, to become Imperator, had been about proving to the Immortan that she could serve him, even if it wasn’t how she’d originally been intended. Ace remembered the time when, after reporting to the Immortan, one of the boys had eagerly asked her what the Immortan was like. She’d gone deathly still, and the boy had hurriedly apologised for the impertinence of the question. Ace had always assumed she did not want to be reminded of her failure as breeder, and tried to make sure the boys wouldn’t mention it.

Her face was already slack with sleep again when Ace next looked. He had the vague sense that he'd found an edge under a sand dune, something that might be big, but he had no idea yet of what shape it might be, and he wasn't sure if he had permission to uncover it.

* * *

When the crew was first coming together, the Imperator took to inviting some of the crew to her room sometimes after a run, when they were hurt. It made sense; she didn't like leaving them on the Organic Mechanic's cold ledges, preferred them where she could keep an eye on them. It was warmer and lighter in her room, easier to breathe with bruised ribs. It was unusual, bringing them up for their comfort instead of hers, but they'd gotten used to it. She wanted them all in good working order, body-engines running smoothly, so it made sense.

There had been no injuries on this time, apart from a sprained wrist, which nobody thought qualified. They'd done their usual run to Gas Town and then the Bullet Farm, where they'd then retrieved the Immortan's newest wife.

The girl had skin that was a beautifully unblemished light brown and long black hair intriguingly made into many little cords. The Bullet Farmer said she had been rescued from a Wasteland tribe a few months ago. Unfortunately she had not understood her rescuers meant well by saving her from a life in the wastes, and she certainly did not seem to appreciate the honour she was being afforded in being taken to become Wife to the Immortan. She'd had to be bound - gently - and put under guard in the back of the War Rig's cab.

The Imperator looked hard and cold, and Ace could imagine how she might feel at the girl's ingratitude at being given the honour of the Immortan's regard, when it had been so painfully taken away from the Boss and was missed so much. He put Sprocket in the cab with them, as a last line of defence for the girl if they should be attacked and so that the Boss might concentrate on driving.

Sprocket at least had the good sense not to mention the Boss' past, though from the times Ace dropped by the cab, the girl wasn't shy about alternatively imploring and hurling accusations at the Boss in whispered snatches.

_(“Do you even care that they killed my family to get to me?”)_

_(“I can survive in the Wastes, I know how. Just turn your back…”)_

_(“You’d free me if you had any goodness in you.”)_

A prisoner would have been gagged by now, but they couldn't touch the new Wife.

By the time they arrived at the Citadel the Boss's jaw looked so tight Ace expected to hear the cracking of her teeth any moment, and she wasn't yet done with her tasks. She now had to lead the new Wife to where the Organic Mechanic would examine her, where she would be given the Immortan's mark, and finally deliver her to the vault.

"Need me to send somebody with you?" Ace asked, watching together with the Boss as the new Wife was carefully handed down from the cab.

"No. I'll - no." Her voice sounded tight and raw, and she looked grim. "You and he," she nodded to Sprocket as he jumped down from the cab, "sleep in my room tonight."

It was the kind of low-voiced command that was almost, not quite, a question, and Ace understood that this was an Indulgence, heard the implied 'Unless you really don't—'

He nodded, because while this was new, no reason to have them in her room, nobody was hurt— if she wanted them there, they would be. "Of course, Boss."

He watched her walk away, her flesh hand firm but careful on the new Wife's upper arm, and wondered what she wouldn't give to trade places.

She was already in her room when they arrived there, still in her dusty leathers and her arm on. The scent of burned flesh clung to her hair. She'd washed her face, but her eyes looked red and sore.

Ace didn't quite know what to do with the confused ball of urges to— to— _do_ something, _anything_ , to make this better. He held out the mealworm biscuits he'd brought for her, guessing she hadn't wanted to go to the meal halls to face the questions everybody would have about the Immortan's chrome new Wife.

She accepted the rations silently and sat down heavily on the wide ledge in the window opening, looking like she wasn't sure what to do with them now they'd come.

Ace met Sprocket's eyes. She had to be missing the Immortan especially keenly tonight, but maybe they could— it felt blasphemous, but maybe they could at least comfort her? It wouldn't be the same, but Ace imagined what he'd do if he had a Wife as shiny as her, imagined how the Immortan might have held her close, and hoped they could be Something.

The two of them nodded at each other, and went to sit by the Boss' side. Ace let the outside of his arm brush against hers, offering his presence, and her skin felt cool. This close, he could hear her breath hitch a little.

While she ate, she slowly leaned against his arm, her spine relaxing from its rigid stance by degrees, and finally he slid his arm around her so she could lean into his side. She half-heartedly fumbled at the belts of her arm.

"Let me, Boss?" Sprocket said, and when she nodded, undid the buckles for her, carefully slipped off the heavy arm and put it away on its wall hook. He brought back with him the small jar of ointment she kept on a ledge near the hook, and massaged some into where the skin of her stump was rubbed red and raw.

Furiosa sighed, sinking heavier against Ace's side.

They helped her out of her boots and the black waist brace that spread the pressure of her belts. Sprocket brought her a damp cloth and she let him wipe at her shorn hair, getting the worst of the smell of burnt flesh out. Finally she just sat there, exhaustedly staring at her mattress like she didn't know what to do now.

"Boss, if you've changed your— if you prefer for us to—" Ace tried very gently. They weren't used to seeing her like this, uncertain and seeming to seek their touch as much as tensing from it. He was sure she was regretting asking them to come - how could they possibly ease the pain of missing the Immortan?

"Please stay," she whispered, eyes still fixed on the mattress, and then went to it, laid down. After a moment of hesitation, they settled down on either side of her. She slowly turned onto her side and curled against Sprocket, resting her head on his shoulder. She made an approving hum when he stroked his hand over her hair.

Then she reached back to find Ace's hand and tugged him closer, until he was lightly pressed along her back. He slid his hand up her arm and gently kneaded at her shoulder, trying to ease some of the tension there, feeling somewhat skittish with it and prepared to stop the moment she gave any indication of discomfort. She just let out a sigh that seemed to come from her toes and let her arm slide across Sprocket's scarred chest, cuddling closer to him.

Sprocket gave the Ace a questioning glance, and Ace nodded and the War Boy settled in, prepared to give comfort for however long their Imperator wanted it.

They’ve known Furiosa as steady as the stones of the Citadel, unshakeable even as raiders seemed to overwhelm them and enemy fire hit from all directions. They’ve known Furiosa as brilliant and shining with her victories and successes and lifting the crew up with her as if they’d the right to share in it. They’ve known her as contemplative and regretful and fond as she bestowed on them alcohol that tasted of the Immortan’s gardens.

But they’ve never seen this.

Ace looked at Sprocket and Sprocket looked back and between them they knew that they were holding her together. He felt honored by her trust even as he felt twisted by the fact that he could see no solution to ease the situation.

It seemed like a long time before the trembling faded and her body relaxed against them. Ace breathed in relief when her breath slowed with sleep. They hadn't really understood what she had needed from them, and maybe she hadn't quite known either, but apparently they hadn't completely failed her.


	9. Crater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crater: Hitting the ground at the end of a fall instead of being caught by the rope
> 
> _When he’d met the wastelander, Austeyr had been pushing the bike along, trying to get it to the Citadel; Furiosa and the rest of the crew should be done with the milk run by now, back from the Bullet Farm. Perhaps by getting the motorcycle back to them, he’d be re-accepted as crew despite his failure. But if this wasteland wanker is taking the bike from him all that will be lost._

Glory skips across the orange dusted road, always at the far edges of where the mirages start appearing.

 _Children always liked water_ , Max thinks. _Why not ghost children and ghost water?_

The sun’s swinging downwards when they get to a point in the road where Glory squats and peers at tire tracks and her head swings ‘round to her left.

She goes off-road.

The sun is just touching the horizon when he starts coming up on wreckage, bits and pieces of red sheared metal, jagged edges, and curved bits streaked in citadel black. 

_Max! Where are you?_ Glory yells impatiently.

He rises from his crouch examining the metal, too small to be of much use but he automatically collects it in his pockets. She’s at the curve of the next bend, waving, the land around them rising and falling in gentle hills. Max approaches, gun out and ready to dive to the side, and the _shush shush_ of feet dragging through sand finally registers in his consciousness.

A lone white figure appears around the bend, head down, rolling beside him a motorcycle, his arm draped along its handles. The other arm hangs limply, looking squared off and dislocated, and the bike wobbles precariously. Max watches as it becomes one wobble too many and the vehicle just flops over, as if done with life.

The War Boy sags and tilts his head up to look at the sky above him.

He’s already moving towards him but still three car lengths away when the black painted brow tilts, catching sight of him. With a roar the man dashes between Max and the bike, arms to the side, as if to protect it.

Max only approaches grimly, shoulders set, and watches as the taller man’s eyes grow quick and panicked. He rushes Max, who sidesteps at the last moment and shoves the War Boy flat to the ground using his own momentum, with pressure on his bad shoulder. Max sits on him calmly, palm to the joint, as the thrashing kicks up sand in sad little plumes.

“How do you know Furiosa?” Max asks the brand on the back of the War Boy’s neck. The way the Citadel cheered when they saw her on their return, the way that the Citadel had echoed when Immortan Joe had first sent off the convoy, loud enough for him to hear inside, Max knows that anyone who was of the Citadel would know who Furiosa is. But _how_ they know her, that’s something different.

_Was this War Boy reliable?_

The body beneath him stills.

“How do _you_ know—”

Max puts a little pressure on his shoulder.

“Aagh, _schlanger!_ Tellin’ you nothing!”

Max pauses. He’s not sure what he’s going to do with this guy even if he’d prove to be as open to reason as Nux. He only knows that this War Boy is currently split from any war party and doesn’t seem to have a working bike. As for himself, Max has the vague idea of their location and an idea of what he’d like to do, but what he knows for sure is that he would really like his car back. Another pair of hands might help, especially if between them they could get the motorcycle working. Maybe Max would take him the rest of the way backtracking up to the canyon, searching for salvage, get them both working rides.

Well, if the War Boy stops wanting to injure him, he thinks, as he wrestles the body still again.

‘ _Do you want that thing off your face?’_ Max remembers.

Speaking slow, testing the words out in his mouth, Max asks the young man, ”Want me... t’reset your arm?”

The white-painted head twists to one side, to eye him dubiously, “You’d have to let me up for that.”

“Yeah,” Max agrees.

“...you’re just gonna shove me down again if I run, aren’t you?”

“Mm.”

The War Boy drops his head down against the sand for a moment.

Then nods.

Max gets off him, and prodding him to sit upright, moving to the lancer’s left side where the arm sits awkward. The younger man looks at him stiffly and moves slow, and freezes when Max grabs ahold of the wrist in one hand and the elbow in another, bending the arm at a right angle.

“Relax,” Max says.

“This gonna hurt isn’t it.”

“Nng,” He shakes his head and starts massaging the muscles of the shoulder, ”not if you relax.”

The War Boy scoffs, “Think this is my first? It always hurts, that’s how you can tell they’re doing it right.”

“ ‘They’?” Max prods, moving the massage down to the bicep.

“The Organic Mechanic, where us War Boys go to get ourselves tuned. Well,” a begrudging sigh, shoulders lowering, “Boss never much liked us to be there.”

“Oh?”

A shrug, “Never much liked it herself, to be honest. Never got the full story but, the Mechanic gets—” 

Max drops his hands and sits back on his heels.

“—weird. Around her— hey, you gave up already?” The War Boy tilts his head, mouth an angry twist.

“ ‘S fixed. Try it.”

Max gets a long look that grows astonished as the man tests out his arm and its range of motion.

It's hard to tell age with the facepaint, but he's tall and lean, well-muscled, in his mid twenties at least. He's got the same symbols on his right arm as the lancer on Nux's car did - must be a lancer too. Max guesses that the tumors on the War Boy’s side and shoulder doesn’t help with the flexibility; there’s still tightness at the corners of the other’s eyes when the arm reaches a couple angles, and a certain unbalanced quality to the movement, but the arm rotates freely.

“Oh.”

“Mmm.” Max stands and goes to look at the fallen bike. The War Boy scrambles up and tries to follow. “Worked with Furiosa then?” Max guesses that she’d been the only female Imperator in Immortan Joe’s ranks, but figures the War Boy would reveal the truth in his responses. Seems like a chatty guy.

“What—” he comes to a stop on the other side of the bike.

“You called her ‘Boss’ just now.” Max squats and starts brushing sand away from the pipes and connections, brow furrowing, checking the fuel line.

“Well,” the War Boy shifts his weight from one foot to another, and finally sighs as if coming to a decision, “I’m on her crew. Or.. don’t know if I still am. Hey are you— are you a blackthumb?”

He just grunts and continues working at the bike, checking the spark plugs, the chains— _oh_. Max starts patting himself down for something thin and sharp. A needle comes to his hand, used. Bloody.

 _Furiosa_ ’s.

He runs a slow thumb up its side thoughtfully. Changes his grip on it and starts picking the sand out of the chains.

 _Her crew would need a bike to get home_ , he thinks. He doesn’t know when he’d decided that, and he doesn’t know if this War Boy was acceptable. Why doesn’t he consider himself part of her crew anymore? Was it because Furiosa betrayed Immortan Joe or simply because he’d gotten separated?

“What are you doing?”

Max shoots a look of disbelief over his shoulder and continues at his task. Pauses, darts out a hand to run his finger through the dark grease across the lancer’s forehead—

“Hey!”

—and applies the oil to the bit he’d just cleaned. He continues working. Max wonders what he might say to get this young man to show who or what he’s loyal to; he wishes he had someone else here to do it for him.

He wonders what Furiosa would say, given the chance.

“...you can’t just _take_ the bike,” the young man protests, and Max scoffs. There’s no ‘taking’ here, he’d be returning them both to the Citadel; though he might be returning her crew to her hogtied if he proves to be—

 _Max!_ Glory shouts.

He barely has time to wedge the needle into the chain and let go before he’s tackled.

* * *

Austeyr’s face meets the dirt again. Should’ve known the tackle wouldn’t work, he’s taller but quite a bit lankier. He’s outweighed and outmatched but he has to _try_.

“I need to get this back to her!” He doesn’t understand why this wastelander resets his arm, can’t even wrap his head around why he did it so gently, but he knows that somehow this man is interested in the motorcycle. He knows that the man knows Furiosa and what cause has he to know of Austeyr’s Imperator unless it was through War?

Letting him use his arm again isn’t worth letting the man steal the bike from Boss’ convoy; the vehicle’s so valuable that the comparison isn’t even _close_. And that’s not even counting the sick feeling of betrayal Austeyr gets at such a bargain being conducted right beneath his nose.

 _He didn’t agree to anything!_ He wouldn’t have knowingly failed Boss like that.

Austeyr still burns with shame that he couldn’t get even one lance off against the spikey cars; his bike had been rammed by the enemy’s front bumper, but Austeyr had already gone flying. He’d landed on the heaps of sand that borders the road but Spool wasn’t so lucky. His driver had landed on the road and been run over by one of the trailing Buzzard vehicles, large and boxy. Austeyr paid Witness and hoped for Spool that it was enough to make him awaited.

He’d fetched their bike but he was no repair boy, never had the knack. He’s lucky to have had some muscle, blessed by the Immortan with good aim; even if both are failing him. The nightfevers are coming on him sharp now, arms gone shaky, core muscles weak ever since his tumors started ramming up through them, and Austeyr had hoped that this run he’d be given the chance to enter Valhalla.

Instead he’d been less than mediocre.

When he’d met the wastelander, Austeyr had been pushing the bike along, trying to get it to the Citadel; Furiosa and the rest of the crew should be done with the milk run by now, and perhaps by getting the motorcycle back to them, he’d be re-accepted as crew despite his failure. But if this wasteland wanker is taking the bike from him all that will be lost.

“Deceiver!” Austeyr spits, and struggles, uncaring of his shoulder or his sides or any of his pain. He almost knocks the man off. “Liar! _I didn’t barter this_. Pull my arm back out again, but leave the bike to me.”

“Why.”

“Why does it matter! You know her right? If you’re doing this as revenge—” the thought of it enrages him more and he finds the will to increase his struggles.

His face is smashed into the ground again and the growl echoes in his ear, “And if I was doing this on Immortan Joe’s orders?”

Austeyr drops back down, “What?”

“Did you know she ‘traitored’ him?” The wastelander is tying him up with a stretch of cloth, as Austeyr’s trying to wrap his mind around it.

 _Furiosa_ ? _She traitored Immortan Joe? Is she even still alive?_

“Holed up in the citadel now,” the man replies, Austeyr didn’t realize that he’d asked that out-loud and he finds his jaw being tilted so that he meets the man’s eyes, “Somehow took it. The War Pups let her up.”

Austeyr can't meet the man’s gaze. He can well enough believe that the War Pups let her up because they’d always swarmed around her and the crew with curiosity; even if she was silent more often than not and just short of curt, unlike the other Imperators she had mingled among them even when ranked. She’d kept drifting down to the garages herself, doing repairs next to the pups on the vehicles she ran. Austeyr had watched her as a War Boy-in-training with the vague wish that he could’ve known an Imperator like that when he’d been young himself. She’d always seemed so assured of her place, steady like the Rig itself, an impression that only cemented when Austeyr was honored with his selection as part of her crew.

So Furiosa betraying their Redeemer? That seems impossible.

“You’re a liar.” Austeyr says weakly.

The man just grunts and goes back to repairing the bike. Austeyr struggles to sit up, the cloth binding his arms making every movement tug at his bad shoulder and spike with pain.

“You say the Immortan wants this bike? Well where is he then?” It seems incomprehensible that the Boss could be still alive if the Immortan found himself traitored. She was chrome and part machine but Joe was the Immortan himself, “What happened?”

All Austeyr is given is an absent wave in the direction of the canyons, Rough Rider territory. “Chased after her,” a pause as the man blows at the chains and then picks at them some more with a bloody needle, “Battle.” There’s a vague twitchy hand motion.

He watches the wasteland man for a long long time trying to wrap his mind around a world where someone could do such a thing to Immortan Joe and remain breathing.

 _If anyone could,_ Austeyr thinks, _it would be Furiosa._

The wastelander eventually seems satisfied with the chain and starts the vehicle up briefly, listens to the engines rumble. Then he shuts it off with a nod. It will be full dark soon.

The man rises and walks over to him, sifting through his pack.

Something is held in front of his face.

“Drink,” the man grunts.

“I could do this myself with two hands,” Austeyr points out.

He’s given a long look.

“I’ll make sure the bike returns to who it belongs to.” Austeyr offers to this man who claims to be working for the Immortan. “You’ve said your piece. We’re going to the canyons right? You want to meet up with the Immortan? I’ll help you.”

The wastelander is unmoving and the sound of the wind is loud around them. But the man finally bends down and unties his hands, taking the cloth back to drape around his neck.

“You’ll help me?” The sound is growled and a packet of something is nudged at his hands along with a canteen.

When Austeyr opens the packet he finds what feels like jerky and something… papery? He can barely tell, it’s dark, and the night isn’t great for vision or detail. He licks it and it’s like nothing he’s ever eaten, a bit spicy, a bit... bright.

“What’s this?” He works at the jerky first. It might be a trick.

A phrase is mumbled but that _can’t_ be right, Austeyr almost chokes on the jerky. ‘ _Dried greens’_? Who would think of giving a War Boy such a thing? (This man, apparently, who’d gently reset his arm.)

The wasteland man only gives an affirmative sound as if agreeing. Or encouraging.

Austeyr simply folds the ‘greens’ up and slips it into a hip-pouch; he’ll look at it come dawn. His mind is spinning, but he knows what he has to do.

* * *

The bike rumbles to a start and then it sets off.

Max comes out of his semi-alert doze. Avoiding true sleep is a cultivated skill and one that’s become habit more often than not. And Max sits up swiftly and tracks its movement.

The sound dies.

He gets up, does a quick check for all his gear, and lopes towards the bike. It was headed towards the Citadel, and he finds his mouth quirking.

The War Boy looks terrified when he arrives, but he still positions himself in front of the machine as if it's worth more than his own skin.

“Bad fuel,” Max says, “Contaminated. Can start but...” he waves at the stalled bike.

“You’re not taking this ride,” the War Boy insists, looking like he’d die to back it up. His eyes drifts down to the black scarf around Max’s neck and if possible, begin to look even more afraid.

Max makes a questioning sound and steps closer.

“You can’t!”

“ ’s what you wanted isn’t it?” Max prods, “Taken back to Immortan Joe?”

The white-painted chest heaves with his breaths, as if panicked, “But then how would I be awaited? The Immortan doesn’t accept— I’m just—”

“Mmm?” Max stops an arms-length away. The other’s scarified arms are drifting down in uncertain motions, twitchy.

Max knows the feeling, and waits the taller man out with his silence, and watches him fidget and then rest a hand on a small hip-pouch. But instead of opening it, the War Boy just pats it as if thinking and trying to draw guidance.

“To go to Valhalla you must be Witnessed,” he finally says.

Max nods, remembering how insistent Nux had been to throw himself into danger, how desperately the young man had been to prove himself and to be useful. He reaches out and supports the other man’s left elbow, on the shoulder that’d been dislocated, rubbing a little to encourage the arm to untense.

The War Boy’s shoulders collapse in on themselves like small hunched shame and his other hand comes up to support his left forearm.

“The Immortan,” and the words drag themselves out, “does not want to witness mediocrity.”

“And Furiosa would?” Max asks, a bit in surprise given his memory of the woman as he’d first seen her.

“The Boss… has mercy,” there’s a shift of his eyes as if he’d said something incriminating, “For those who are crew. Like some… Afterburn recently, he was too busted for another run, Mechanic wouldn’t give him another line, said it’d be wasted.”

The War Boy clears his throat, and Max waits patiently.

“Boss, she, she took him to where we’d dry-practice, all of us there that day. He’d given her a good scuffle and Boss made sure we witnessed him when she sent him off.”

Max looks at the War Boy, brows furrowed. ‘ _She sent him off’, did that mean..._?

“I’d like my ride to Vahalla to be as clean, as quick,” a hard swallow, “You can’t imagine how that garage sounded that day. It was so loud the gates _must_ have been opened to him; he’d even been sent there by the Boss’s own chrome hand.”

There’s a long moment where they’d each were lost in thought. _This is the shape of their mercy_.

Max lets himself register how Furiosa killed one of her own men, how the rest apparently found that compassionate, how Furiosa had been so certain she’d killed them all in her escape, or got them killed, because Max knows the shape of the ghosts that appears in her eyes. Had she felt sick about it at the time or had that come only with hindsight?

(“...redemption…”)

 _This world breaks each of us in our own way,_ Max thinks.

“I’d...I’d failed at lancing this past run but thought that maybe,” large eyes rose finally to meet his, shining, “Maybe getting her this bike would get me back on her crew. That’s why I need it, Immortan Joe has shinier rides, better War Boys, let me… let me just _get this to her_ —”

— _that I might die awaited_. The words hang between them in the silence.

Max hums, and feels inadequate, and gives the taller man an awkward pat to his good shoulder, “ ‘m sure you already are crew. That she’s seen you. Remembers you.” He gives the shoulder a gentle shake.

“But how do you _know_.” The sound is cracked.

“Met her.” Max shrugs, “Helped her.”

The man looks still disbelieving.

Max tugs a bit at the black scarf uncomfortably, “She gave me this.”

The War Boy’s shocked glance darts from the scarf to his eyes and back again, “The Imperator—?! She gave… and not the Immortan?”

“Not ‘Immortan’,” Max growls, “ _Dead_. She killed him.”

A deep long breath heaves into scarified chest.

And another.

“Immortan Joe’s _dead?_ ” And finally the War Boy breaks through his shock, shoulders squaring, shaking off Max’s hand, “You said you were working for him!”

Max skims him a sideways look. He’d never said that directly, “Had t’be sure of you.” He steps back from the War Boy and gestures at the horizon. “Still going back?” _Does Joe’s death change things?_  
  
He’s greeted with a hysterical laugh. “More’n ever.”

The lancer trots up to the left handlebar and grabs it with his good hand. Max watches him and nods, and meets him on the other side. Releasing the kickstand, they start walking.

 _Should be a day’s walking to get back,_ Max thinks. _Maybe a bit more to give him rest_.

“Hey,” the War Boy breaks in, “What’s your name, by the way?”

Max looks over and the man’s lips are cracked in a scarred smile.

 _Those are so rare now,_ he thinks.

Finds himself saying, “Max.”

“Mine’s Austeyr,” the War Boy replies, smiling wider, and that’s the excuse Max gives himself for being caught off-guard when the black forehead lunges over the bike to bash against his. “Nice to meet you.”

Max presses a hand to his head and it comes back greased. He blinks. Grunts and nods in front of them.

Austeyr laughs again and they push the bike along between them as dawn slides over the world’s lip.


	10. Exposure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exposure: Empty space below a climber, usually referring to a great distance a climber is above the ground or large ledge, or the psychological sense of this distance due to being unprotected, or because the rock angles away due to climbing an arête or overhang. Exposure can also refer to exposure to the elements, like wind, snow, or sun.
> 
> _“What d’you think of the Boys?” she asks of Cheedo who has at least some sense of caution to her but it’s their flame-haired sister who answers._
> 
> _“They remind me of Nux,” Capable says quietly, distant eyes focusing back to them, “Something of their quietness.”_
> 
> _“They’ve failed their god,” the Dag observes, “and they don’t understand how.”_

Ace jolted awake when the door opened. It was morning, judging by the light coming from the window opening. Not that he’d exactly slept a lot - between his own shortness of breath and Furiosa’s escalating fever, there had been snatches of sleep at best.

The early morning light showed three women in the doorway. The eldest had her hair in two long grey cords, and she was dressed much like the Organi— the healer, including the rifle slung across her back. Ace pushed himself upright, watching her warily as she inspected them all with a careful eye. Then she nodded at him.

“I’m Janey. Gale said you were taking care of our girl there.”

Ace nodded cautiously, his automatic defensiveness easing at the acknowledgement.

“Do you think we could talk with her a while?”

Ace looked over the other women. The second was soft and brown, with her hair braided into cords against her scalp. She had a body of plenty, dressed in soft wrappings, and a very young baby nestled in a sling against her. Ace had only seen the milking mothers once, from a distance, but he thought she must have been one of them. 

The other was younger, with a smoothness of face that said she’d not spent a lot of time in the elements. A Wife, then, though he supposed with Joe dead none of them weren’t any longer anybody’s wife. She had long black hair and looked vaguely familiar - he suddenly remembered her being with the dagger woman when they got him from the Organic's ledge. Ace realised with a cold feeling that she had to be one of the people the Boss had decided to take with her instead of crew.

He swallowed painfully and stowed that knowledge into a box in the back of his brain, stomping down on the lid to make it shut. The Boss needed him to assist right now. He could deal with the other stuff later.

“Janey…” Furiosa croaked from next to him. Ace was relieved to find her eyes relatively clear. She’d spent half the night crying out for somebody called Katee.

He laboriously moved to lean against the wall, and then helped the Boss upright enough so she could lean against his less-injured side. The milking mother had brought her more milk, which was good because her jaw was definitely not up to chewing the mealworm biscuits the rest of them had been given. She drank in short, quick swallows, then needed a while to catch her breath.

The women looked concerned about how long it took, and Ace had to fight the urge to fuss over her, himself. The elder then offered her a warmed canteen, _a tea to wake you up a bit_ , which Furiosa smelled with caution.

"You had some yesterday, before we arrived here," the woman said, and Furiosa drank it then, if with pauses and a grimace.

The women sat down to form a little circle and Ace wondered if they’d meant to include him or if it just happened because he was propping up the boss. But before he could wonder more the woman spoke—

"I am Janey," the older woman said, glancing to him, so apparently he's not just here as support even though her eyes were mostly for Furiosa.

"Mellie," the one with the baby mentioned, her gaze full of a certain easing suspicion as she took him in.

"Cheedo," the third introduced herself.

"Ace," he replied. "These," he gestured to the sleeping figures behind him, "are Kompass and Rachet. Crew." _Trusted, as much as you trust me._

"Fury, are you with us?" Janey asked.

The Boss made a weak gesture that meant 'I'm listening'.

“We think we’ve got the place mostly secure for the moment, but there’s a lot of stuff needs sorting out,” Janey began, unslinging her rifle and reaching, placing it against the wall. It was within reach of both herself and Ace. When he looked at her she nodded back and he found himself settling a little.

“And we’re leaning on people with loyalties we can’t be sure of,” Cheedo added.

“We're assisting as best we can," Mellie said, rocking the baby idly, looking at it occasionally with fond amazement even as her jaw firms, "Joe discussed a lot of things in front of us that he thought we'd never understood.”

Furiosa made a gesture for them to tell her, and they began listing names and responsibilities. The Boss hummed a yea or nay, or nudged Ace with her elbow for his opinion, which it seemed she increasingly did as her breaths started getting more reedy.

At the 20th name however, he couldn't hold back and wait for her request. Not given what little he knew of how Furiosa fought them right after arriving.

“He’s one of Corpus’ men,” Ace said, blew out a breath when this news seemed to shock the women. “Maybe a spy then, or simply shifting to th' winds. What’s Corpus doing?”

He hadn’t been quite sure he had the right to speak, but Janey responded as if he did, after exchanging a glance with the women around her. 

“After we’d established control of Joe’s Throne Room, he’d backpedaled quick. Said he hated his father. Offered us knowledge about the logistics and trade of the Citadel.”

“Doing what he needs to… to stay alive,” Furiosa corrected at a whisper. She had to keep stopping to draw breath. “He’s waiting… for the returning,” she gestured vaguely to the outer wall, and Ace wondered how many of those who had gone out would return. From what he’d heard they would have to go around the mountains. “Don’t give him,” she coughed painfully, and Ace winced at the spasms he could feel go through her. “access to… signals.. lookouts…”

“Or any of his people,” Ace added. "Ask me, if you have any concerns."

Furiosa nodded in agreement. She sagged against his side, and he looked at Janey, checking that she’d seen it. Rachet was blinking awake, and Kompass was already clear eyed shifting into a sitting position, woken since the coughing started. The second grabbed a canteen near the edge of the mattress and unscrewed it while shifting over to Ace, offering the Boss the bottle. Ace saw the women watching and hunched up his shoulder despite himself, turning them both towards Kompass, a little awkward from their gaze.

“That’s enough to go on,” the older woman decided. “Rest up Furiosa, and I’ll see that Gale comes round in a bit. We’ve got it for now, but we’re gonna need you in a day or twelve.”

“Boss, you want we should send Rachet with them?” Ace suggested. "He can make sure people are who they say they are."

Furiosa’s eyes were glassy, but she made an affirmative hum.

“I’ll go too,” Kompass said, struggling to stand, arm still held awkwardly in a sling. “We can help, Boss. Let us?”

Ace waved his second onwards and left him to it. Kompass was far more mobile than Ace was, and they really needed all the experience they could muster.

* * *

Kompass and Rachet followed the women to where they'd set up command, staring wide-eyed at the grandness of the pump room. All that Aqua Cola! It made more sense now, how the Immortan had been so generous with the Wretched. The War Boys had counted themselves favoured with a bucket of Aqua Cola to share between the entire crew.

Rachet trailed to a halt when seeing the big opening on one side of the room, the big rock teeth. This was the ledge with the skull face.

 _The Immortan stood there_. Some instinctive sense of trespass yawned before Kompass and it set him on edge. Rachet was already hanging back a little, looking uncertain, and Cheedo hung back as well, speaking briefly to a War Pup who nodded and dashed away.

Kompass grit his teeth and followed the other women to a large circle of makeshift seats. There were seven people there, some of which he'd encountered the first time he'd seen the Boss again.

"—first things is to construct a pipe to lead the water from the spouts instead of just droppin' it," a woman was saying. "Ridiculous to be wasting it all to the wind and dust. If we have a basin down there, we can fill it up when needed and the people down there will always have water."

Kompass stared, caught himself and blinked. He'd thought Mellie looked chrome, all soft and lush, but this woman was - large, with softness in her arms, her chest, her hips - she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. He wondered what it'd be like to be held by arms as soft as hers.

"I'd like to knock down those ugly-ass teeth first," Miss Gale said, gesturing to the opening to the outside. "Before we build anything down there for them to break on their way down. Then we'll plant some creepers, cover the whole damn thing."

"There is a team of Repair Boys," a young woman with flame hair said. "They can build the pipe? At least I think they can.”

“Just don't know if we can trust them," another with a harder face shot back.

"Everyone," Janey interrupted, and every face swiveled towards them as Kompass’ fingers twitch towards his belt, "This is Kompass and Rachet. They can help us figure out who’s trustworthy. Furiosa vouches for them."

"Britt," the plush woman introduced herself, like Kompass was here to join their discussion. Mellie pushed herself a space in the circle and bought the tiny pup up between them, a flurry of coo’s and low murmurs proceeding as both women bent their heads towards the small body.

"Capable." The young woman with the flame hair. Rachet edged into the room out of curiosity, approaching slowly, eyes mostly skimming across the chairs, the decorations, the remnants of Immortan that had been in that room.

"I'm Dag." He remembered the knife-like woman from when she'd brought them Ace, Janey took a seat by her.

"Cookie," the only man said, a familiar face from the food distro.

"Deka," said a woman with a slanted face, one half of her body seemingly immobile. Kompass thought she was one of the Wretched.

"You've met me," Miss Gale said, then turned to the others. "They've been looking after Furiosa."

“Toast,” the shortest one said sharply and launched directly into an attack, "Been wondering about that, actually. She's… all right with having these guys in her room…?" Toast said slowly, as if trying the words. She turned to the dagger. "She strike you as the type to be all right with having a bunch of guys in her space? Especially when she's injured?"

"How would you know?" Rachet broke in, clearly listening after all, "How well do you know her?”

Kompass watched their faces, turned instantly hard and doubtful, and he settled his weight forward on the balls of his feet in response. These were the breeders for whom Furiosa shed her crew. He wonders at their worth, what they might have said to Furiosa to be more worthy than the many hundreds of days that the crew had been loyal to her. Kompass wished Furiosa had said something about staging a coup. He still finds himself uneasy out of habitual respect for the Immortan, but had the two been placed before him and a lance about to land, he knows whom he would dive to save.

(And it wasn’t the Immortan Joe, he admitted in the secret of his mind.)

“We've been lookin' after the Boss for _years_. That's what crew _does_." Rachet continued, but the younger women’s gazes were still searching.

He was getting the uneasy sense they were looking for something, like he was out of place, like this was a dune they suspected had salvage in it somewhere, but he couldn't quite figure out what they thought they might find.

"A crew always looks after their Imperator like this? In their room?" Capable said softly.

"Exactly what kind of 'looking after' are we _talking_ about here," Dag said, knife sharp. 

Kompass gave Rachet a warning look not to talk about Comfort and Being Useful, because he was suddenly not sure if the women were still being protective of Furiosa or if they were… suspicious? Of… of _her_? Of her inviting her crew to her quarters for Use? Was that what was happening? Even after the Boss had sacrificed so much to oust the Immortan Joe and so clearly had put them in power, they'd question her like this? He wished he was better with fancy words, maybe then he could make them understand.

"We _want_ to. _She wants_ us to. I don't understand the _problem_ ," Rachet said plaintively, clearly not catching his look, but for whatever reason it worked and the women relaxed a little.

“She’d asked for Ace,” Cheedo finally spoke up, and walks from the doorway to sit by the Dag. Her voice holds no little amount of caution and maybe surprise, “Seems to rest better with them near.”

“Mellie agrees with that,” Britt raised her voice as well, arms bouncing with the tiny pup transferred over, elbowing the milker next to her a little.

Mellie jumped a little at the prompting elbow, and cleared her throat, “She looked at ease, with them caring for her. Y'can’t fake that.”

"Well, I think that's obvious enough," Janey broke in. "Now, we've got defence measures to discuss and then food and water logistics after that; the numbers are not adding up, someone’s skimming off the top. Gale, Furiosa looked like she could use some of your tea."

"I'll go soon as we're done here," Gale nodded.

The tension broke as those named Toast and Capable looked at each other, as Cheedo met their gaze in turn and clutched at Dag’s hand and something was exchanged silently. They all sat back like they hadn't realized they were balanced forward and Kompass felt something turn over in his lungs, letting him breathe more freely, letting him settle on his heels.

Kompass did not expect support from that Cheedo or the milker, speaking up for them like crew. He was not even quite sure what in all that conversation measured for acceptance; neither he nor Rachet had proved their worth or their strength or any sort of usefulness yet to what they’ve been discussing.

Janey gestured for Kompass and Rachet to take a seat in the circle, and began to draw on the rock floor inside the circle in charcoal.

 _The Citadel,_ Kompass thought as he settled in _, and its defenses_. This, at least, he was familiar with, even if being asked for his opinion in a council was new and not a little intimidating.

* * *

Toast chews at her pick as she watched the men leave, the ones named Kompass and Rachet, and doesn’t know where in the spectrum of ally they quite fall. They seemed oddly subdued compared to the usual run of War Boys, even those they’ve found after they returned to the Citadel bearing old Joe’s dead body, but she can’t quite figure why they’d help so readily. She doesn’t yet know their stakes, what they value.

“What d’you think of the Boys?” she asks of Cheedo who has at least some sense of caution to her but it’s their flame-haired sister who answers.

“They remind me of Nux,” Capable says quietly, distant eyes focusing back to them, “Something of their quietness.”

“They’ve failed their god,” the Dag observes, “and they don’t understand how.”

“Well _I_ don’t understand how either, they’d had no contact with old Joe, had no hand in his death, came straight to the Citadel from the sandstorms. Or have the War Pups given more news?”

Cheedo shakes her head, “Their stories are consistent. All three came back with injuries, the older War Boy with the most, Ace? The one staying with Furiosa.”

“And the other two?” Toast presses.

She cast her eyes to the side, “The pups at the infirmary, they said the other two left quick. Disappeared up the rock face…” Cheedo bites her lips in thought, and pushes forward, “the pups say there’s hidden spaces there, in the crevices or behind some of the hanging gardens, that you can get to only if you’re strong.”

“Hidden—!” “Hanging gardens?!”

Cheedo answers Dag’s question first, “The ones off the side of the Citadel, apparently there’s no stairs to them from the inside, you can only get there by climbing.”

“And the water?” the blond persists.

“Runoff, from the terraces above them—”

“Go back to the hidden spaces,” Toast interrupts insistently, “We’re going to have to talk about this, why didn’t those War Boys bring it up in the meeting when we talked about the Citadel’s defenses? They could still be loyal to their ‘Redeemer God’, making plans where we don’t see.”

"While they're nursing Furiosa back to health? That doesn't make sense. If they were still loyal to Joe, they'd kill her, not take care of her."

“Maybe it doesn’t _matter_ to the defense,” Capable brings up. “Maybe they just wanted a safe place to recover.”

“Not everyone is like _Nux_ , you know that right?” Her sister had found the War Boy when she was supposed to have been keeping watch, and yes he did prove reliable, but the fact that Capable was just so quick to trust puts up Toast’s guard.

“ _Stop_.” Cheedo raises her voice before Capable opens her mouth to escalate, “Toast, I’m already having her crew followed. The pups have been ready even before they’ve left the room.”

Toast nods, sitting back; at least more than one of them was thinking critically.

“And Capable,” here Cheedo’s voice softens, “I saw them in the room with her, they... I think you and Dag are right, they’ve lost something.”

“Well they lost old Joe,” she scoffs.

“They’d be real angry with Furiosa if that was the case, than all tired-looking, they know she killed him.”

Toast lets that work through her mind as Capable sits back as well, as the four of them stare at each other and wish for a fifth.

“Angharad needs to be here,” the Dag says what all of them were thinking, eyes sharpening, “So _make_ her be here, what would she say?”

That _they were not things_ , Toasts thinks, with a deep well of sarcasm and grief that feels like anger and dismissiveness and everything ugly, _that they were_ —

She straightens.

“—Crew.” She says. “Furiosa left with nineteen on her crew.” Toast knows this, prides herself on her knowing. “They are three left.”

“They’re… they’re kamakrazee War Boys though,” Cheedo suggests half-heartedly. "Their mates have gone to Valhalla. Do they still grieve? The pups say the War Rig team was the shinest, they'd been together and with Furiosa a long time."

"They must have had bonds," Capable says, "friendships."

 _And she betrayed them for us_ , was the unspoken thought hanging in the air. They had heard these men, while the five of them had been tucked away in the rig. Heard them clomp around the War Rig, heard their cheerful banter, their calls to each other, their chanting. It hadn't been a side they'd even known of War Boys, surprising and confirming their ideas in equal turns. Underneath their paint, they'd been more human than the women had known. 

Then they had heard the fighting, the explosions, the screams.

The dying and the cheers Witnessing it.

"Do we really think she's safe with them…?" Toast asks.

"I don't know that I understand it," Janey said thoughtfully, making all the sisters twitch. They’d forgotten the elder had stayed behind to listen, so easily did she blend with the shadows and the rock, "but the older Boy? He was ready to fight us away from her, if need be. Sick as he is."

"That's because they just don't care about dying."

"He must not be _too_ eager, at his age," the Vuvalini replies.

“I think they’re always still afraid no matter how old, or young, they are,” Capable says, then turning to Toast, "they’re worried their death won't have meaning. Joe gave them a way to feel like it mattered."

“And now that their ‘Immortal’ God’s dead you think they’ve attached themselves to Furiosa to give them that?"

Capable shook her head, helpless. “Yes—Maybe? Maybe they figure she'd give them the best chance to make it meaningful." she sighed, remembering. "I think they also fear just the dying itself. Nux talked… he talked about the nightfevers they all had— do you know he named his tumors?— he says,” she swallows, “ _said_ they draw themselves up like machines, because _they know how to repair machines_.”

“...and they don’t know how to repair themselves,” Toast concludes with a huff.

“Tch!” The Nightingale clicks her tongue, startling them all even further, and pushes away from her shadowed corner, “Don't know about that yet. Must be a reason they all present the same. Been having some thoughts actually, to that damn white paint o’ theirs...”

* * *

Kompass walks through the Citadel with new eyes, slightly stunned. Rachet chatters about lizards next to him, which he only listens to with half-an-ear and the realization that the younger War Boy doesn’t yet see the shape of it all. But then, the younger lancer doesn’t have the training.

Rachet peels off from Kompass to grab meals for the women still waiting in the Council rooms while Kompass watches in thought. The Ace, the Ace’s second, and the roving lead, were the War Rig’s command staff, tasked with the logistics of keeping the run smooth, before, during, and after; the Ace and the second especially tasked with gauging and guarding the Imperator’s sightlines, while the roving lead covered their blindspots.

On a run, being second meant being placed near the cabin, meant assigning lances and crane duty; off a run it meant gauging new crew from a side angle, meant talking to Storage and supplies and keeping them properly topped off instead of shorted, meant talking the best repair pups onto their crew, and all those other detail-work things that kept the machine running.

The Citadel, Kompass now realizes almost numbly, is such a machine as well and he had watched those in the Council talk supplies and fuelage and manpower in ways both similar and different than he was used to. He’d watched as they talked about repairs and rebuilds and how to best arrange the hands that they had to cover all the places they’d needed. He’d watched this crew of women that Furiosa had decided to take with her, and felt overwhelmed by them and by the scope of the task they were undertaking. A task that felt familiar except for two things. One, the scale of it all, not one Rig but _every_ Rig, not one crew but _every_ crew, and everything that housed every crew and all the workings and people of the towers they lived in. And two?

They were a group of Aces and seconds, but none of them seemed to serve as roving lead.

That role had fell on a War Boy who always moved, nimble with both his role and his physical position, moving from place to place on the War Rig, sometimes driver, sometimes lancer, and throughout the outriders as needed.

Furiosa had established the role after Sprocket had switched positions mid-run, letting his injured Lancer drive so he could take over lancing, seeing the value of flexibility. Sprocket had taken the idea and fanged it to its extremes, never being in one place for long, and expanding it off-runs when it meant following the new crew from the shadows, it meant talking to the Fixer and his ilk when the Storage refuses to give, it meant disengaging war pups from commitments they’d prefer to leave, and all the detail-work that could only occur in the Citadel’s crevices.

Morsov had stepped up after Sprocket sped to Vahalla, and further guarded their Boss from the inevitable internal pushback that came with continued success and rise in power, curbing unfounded rumors and jealousies, and discouraging the occasional chrome-struck devotee who'd follow Furiosa around if he got half the chance.

(They'd jokingly taken to calling Morsov The Roaming Cockblocker, at one point, when a lancer had become particularly persistent. The most beautiful irony of which being that Morsov even stole the guy’s preferred gate to Valhalla.)

Fond memories aside, none of these new leaders even seemed to realize that the Citadel _had_ any crevices, any blindspots, any world that lay beneath its surfaces. He hesitated to bring them up during the Council because you do not speak of the Soundless to those they don’t approve of first, unless you want a soft and early death. And these women of Furiosa’s crew have no idea where the food and water are disappearing to, so clearly they haven’t been introduced before. Kompass wishes he wasn't the one having to make these decisions, but both Furiosa and Ace will be out of commision for at least another couple days.

It can't wait, it is all happening _now_.

War happens in instants, at speed, in blinks, with long periods of wait in-between. Kompass’ neck _itches_ because they are in the middle of an ‘instant’ instead of a ‘wait’, and he feels it like watching a gun being drawn on his Imperator.

He needs to _move_ . He’d needed to be moving _already_. Furiosa’s new crew is moving without him, and worse: without anyone to guard where they can’t see.

Kompass does not want to talk to the Fixer, even less to the Soundless and the ones who move inbetween, but Morsov’s in Vahalla, and someone else needs to take up that position even if he isn't the best suited and even if it felt like giving himself a promotion undeserved. Even if it’s an undertaking the scale of which he can’t even fully wrap his head around.

(He won’t allow anyone to shoot at crew from their blindspots, let alone at his Boss, and he has no choice.)

* * *

Spring scratched his nose but kept at a distance when the second from Imperator Furiosa’s crew nodded to himself and strode to a door to outside. But instead of hooking himself onto a line, the War Boy catches his fingers onto a nub of rock, and started free climbing over and upwards. It was a direction Spring can’t follow; still a War Pup, he doesn’t have the strength yet to free climb safely, though he’d been working on it on the indoor walls. He hauled Rakt up behind him as he gave the younger War Pup instructions to signal the far tower, see if they can get a better eye on where this War Boy was heading.

 _Miss Cheedo would be very interested in this,_ Spring thought as Rakt ran off to the signals. He hung out the door as far as he could and tracked Kompass’ position, pointing so that the Pup across the way can more quickly follow the War Boy with their binoculars.

* * * 

Furiosa's quarters grew quiet as the women all left after the mini-Council, and, clearly exhausted after the conversation, Furiosa slept. Ace wanted to sleep too, but he kept staring at her face, animated by restless fever dreams, and wondering what he had done - or neglected to do - for her not to trust him. He would have helped her, but she’d kept him ignorant of her plans, had all but sacrificed him and the crew to make it out.

As far as she had known, she _had_ sacrificed them - Kompass had told him how shocked she’d been to see any of them.

 _Was it worth it? Would it have been worth it if you’d found that green place where you were born?_ he wondered.

There was a knock on the door, and the healer Gale came in. She had a basket of supplies with her.

“How are things here?”

Ace brushed his hand over the Boss’ forehead.

“Feverish.”

“Mm, yes. I’ve got something might help with that, but let’s have a look at her wounds first.”

The healer kneeled down at the Boss’ side of the mattress and felt her heartbeat, counted her breaths.

Furiosa stirred. “...Katee?”

“No, my chick,” the healer said, cupping her face, and she suddenly looked very sad. “It’s Gale. Can I look at your wounds? I need to change the dressing. Ace is here too.”

“Mm.”

Ace idly wondered if she had meant that last as reassurance or as heads-up. Maybe both.

The wounds didn’t look as terrible as he had feared, but the edges were puffy and reddened. The healer put something mushy and green-smelling onto them and wrapped them back up. Then she lifted the Boss’ head and fed her sips of something brown-green from a small glass bottle. It tasted bad, judging by Furiosa’s grimace and weak protest. She got some Aqua-Cola to wash it down.

“She can have the other half of this tonight,” Gale said, showing Ace the little bottle. “And as much milk and water as she’ll have. Don’t ration it, send to the pump room for more.”

Ace nodded, and she came over to his side of the mattress.

“Now you, yeah?”

He cautiously lay back so she could listen to his lungs with a listening thing he recognised from the Organic Mechanic, and he tried to breathe as well as he could, which still wasn’t great. After a minute she leaned in a little closer, and he realised she was looking at his neck.

“Can I?”

He would never get used to an Organic— no, a _healer—_ asking for permission to touch. Nodded.

She had hard, calloused hands, but she was careful as she probed the lumps in his neck.

“This bother you much?”

He blinked at her.

“Compresses your windpipe from the sound of it. Anybody ever try removing them?”

“.... _why?_ ”

She looked at him like she didn’t understand the question.

“...why _bother_ ,” he clarified.

“Well, experienced fella like you, why’d we want you to go to the Mothers sooner’n you had to? Y’ain’t that old, even, I reckon.”

“‘bout fourteen thousand days,” he said automatically, letting the rest of her comment float past him. He was only a few years older than the Boss, though he knew he looked much older than a full life would have at his age. Ancient for a half-life, but half life wasn’t exactly specific anyway. You had boys, barely more than pups, flaming out before they’d seen their first action, then you had the ones who developed slow tumors with barely any fevers, like him. Most warboys didn’t live beyond ten, eleven thousand days at most, but that was because that’s when they went to Valhalla. Some of them were burning out by then, but not nearly all of them. Sprocket hadn't been, he'd barely even had tumours. No telling how long he might have lived.

“Well,” Gale said, getting to her feet, “we’ve got the equipment now. Could give it a try once things settle down here. Reckon I could make you breathe easier, at least.”

Ace stared after her when she left.

“You should think about it,” Furiosa said softly from next to him, and he looked to find her relatively clear-eyed.

“Maybe,” he said noncommittally. He felt her forehead, which seemed a little cooler. That stuff Gale had given her must be working.


	11. Crux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Crux: The most difficult portion of a climb._
> 
> “Let me think about it, Miss Giddy,” Furiosa says as she wakes up, “Give me some time.” 
> 
> Her mouth tastes of sleep. She blinks her eyes open.
> 
> Ace is looking back at her.

There was a large trade party visiting the Citadel, and Joe had ordered her into the vault to guard his wives. Furiosa had accepted the order with a blank expression. She knew he did not know she'd been in the vault, but that didn't stop him from cackling about how she should be sure not to befoul his delicate treasures with her unwomanly self. 

She had spent the first six hours standing silently just inside the entrance, trying to tame the wild shudders that tore through her spine at being in this place.

Then Miss Giddy had slowly walked over to her and offered her tea, and a place in their circle. And Furiosa, who could keep her thoughts to herself and follow her own path with her War Boys with the other Imperators and even with Joe, had offered the old woman her elbow for the walk back, had done it before she'd even thought about it. She had sat down at the old woman's feet and accepted the teacup and felt things she hadn't known she still could.

Including guilt. She remembered the girl giving her hard looks from across the circle. Remembered the smell of her flesh getting branded.

She hadn't spoken, that first time, as the girls talked about half-forgotten concepts, read each other poetry, debated trade and the function of worth, as Miss Giddy looked on fondly.

 **I, in this darkness,  
** **am imagining a bright lamb  
** who comes to graze  
on the grass of my exhaustion

She'd scarcely remembered how to speak, only drank a half-remembered taste and blinked up at the elder who'd seemed as if she ought to have had a rifle slung across her back, tried not to look at the women who spoke with such clarity of thought, and she'd felt awed and _young_. She’d felt like she’d walked into sunlight without grease shading her eyes to temper the brightness.

And afterward, when Ace had met her eyes with the look that meant 'do you want us up, tonight?' she'd shaken her head. Her head had been full of abstract concepts she could only partially understand, her mind not used to thinking about value freely given and false commodities, nor of the snatches of poetry she could not forget.

 **I, in this darkness,  
** see the wet extension  
of my arms under a rainfall,  
that rain which drenched the first prayers of man

Many thousand-days of living as a Warboy and later an Imperator had given her a machine mind, all the unnecessary thoughts and parts taken out to make it run clean and efficient without much thought, without much lingering.

That night, she was _exhausted_ . Almost seven thousand days running on fumes catching up on her, as she finally let herself feel tired. She was hurting in a way she welcomed, _embraced_ , with the memory of sitting at her Initiate Mother's feet, listening to poetry, to songs, to stories about the Old World.

Having her crew around her was usually comforting, restful even, but she almost recoiled at the thought of their chatter around her now.

_Not tonight._

Ace just nodded in acceptance, and she tried not to feel guilty.

"Tell us about where you're from?" Miss Giddy suggested gently, a next visit. And Furiosa didn't know if she had it in her to refuse anything, the gentleness of this woman underlain with familiar steel, the kindness in her eyes that said home, home, _home_.

She told them about the Green Place.

 **I, in this darkness,  
** opened the door to ancient meadows,  
to goldens  
upon the wall of myth,  
whereon we feasted our eyes.

The girls asked her questions. And then a few visits later they asked her _that_ question:

_"No."_

_"But you just said—”_

_"I doubt it even still exists anymore. It's been a long time." Seven thousand days, seven thousand days.._

The tea that afternoon was dusty, she shut her mouth around it.

_"But what if it does?" Cheedo asked, her fingers running around and around the edge of her glove, one that matches on another._

_That next_ _morning the tea tastes of green, she doesn’t know what to do with it and her throat closes up around the mouthful._

_"Who'd— who'd want me back? After the things I've done?" She asks the next next afternoon. She doesn’t remember the taste of tea that day. It was like scalding aqua-cola, tinted iron._

_"After you helped us escape?" Angharad prodded._

_Her machine-mind brought up how Joe's face might look when he'd realise that the vault was empty. Her tea was cold._

_She was quiet for too long, she knew it by the light that came into Angharad's eyes. She knew by the different teas that she drank, day after day, the different places of the sun in these pieces of memory._

_"We know you didn't have a choice. You did what you had to, to survive." Black tea, that time, bitter and bracing, she drank it all the way down to the dregs._

_"Does that really matter," Furiosa asked, meeting Toast's eyes for the first time since the girl had been in the cab of the War Rig, hissing angry and pleading in turns._

_"It will if you help us," Toast decided, voice hard._

_Echoed Dag, voice hurting. Echoed Angharad, a hand on her belly, voice bright, voice green._

_Miss Giddy called that day’s tea Mint. And asked if she’d like some more._

**I, in this darkness  
** say roots— and for the new growth  
on the bush of death  
I expressed:

"water"

“Let me think about it, Miss Giddy,” Furiosa says as she wakes up, “Give me some time.”

Her mouth tastes of sleep. She blinks her eyes open.

Ace is looking back at her.

* * *

"That's where you were, weren't you? When you’d disappear on us. Planning it all." Ace blows out a puff of air and shoves himself upright even though it hurts.

"What?"

"Do you know that the crew covered for you sometimes, when you'd go off in a corner and work on your arm? We'd say we just saw you in another tower, or heading to the mess, or planning the next raid." He forces himself out of the bed. He needs to be moving for this.

"Ace—" She works herself upright as well.

"Sometimes it wasn't your arm. A particularly bad moon-dark sometimes. Or when you'd get more banged up than usual.” The Ace paces through the room in an irregular angry shuffle, holding an arm against his ribs and feeling like his lungs want to fall out, “Thought it'd been one of those that you'd been hiding from us, when you'd started wandering off."

"You noticed." She holds herself even more rigid. She’s tilting slightly and he’s not sure she realizes. It makes some part of Ace squirm to see her like this.

"You think we wouldn't?! _Boss_ ," his voice is strained as he makes another circuit, not being able to look at her, "What made you think that. If you'd only given us _some idea_ —"

"I tried to ask your opinion—" there’s the sound of the mattress shifting and then she’s blocking his path.

"When?!” He rocks forward, ” _When_ did that ever come up."

Furiosa holds her ground, frowning, "I asked what you thought of… of living beyond the Citadel."

"Are the wastes are even an option?” Ace clutches at the back of his neck, it’s sore like a headache. “You’re finally telling me of these people you’re,” and he chokes on this a little, “you’re a part of, this ‘green place’—"

Furiosa’s eyes go blank.

"I'd no idea anything like a green place was _there._ Boss, why didn't you ever give it to us straight?"

She’s steely, even wounded and looking to fall over, "...I couldn't risk it."

"And there it is." Ace's face feels a shatter of itself, trying to hold itself together and to keep his gaze on her, "There it is: you don't trust us. You could just say it flat out."

"I _trust_ you,” she pushes up to him, practically a headbutt, as if he’s _wrong_ , “I trust you to guard my flank, to guard my crew."

"...but not with _yourself?_ "

“I _sleep_ next to you,” she hisses. “I let you take me to Organic!”

“What does that even _mean_?” Ace isn’t seeing how this relates to trust at all.

"You can’t—” Her voice is hard, breathless. “ _You've never lived as a breeder in the Citadel_."

Ace steps back in confusion, a turn of the conversation he wasn’t expecting. He didn't realize he'd been looming.

“Do you remember that first time—” she pauses to catch her breath, “you took me to Organic?”

Ace nods warily. He wasn’t likely to forget that.

“Why didn’t you just leave me there?”

“Boss, you were— he was— I’d never seen him...“ He makes a frustrated gesture. “The way he touched you. I _couldn’t_. Not if I were your Ace.” 

He feels weighed underneath her gaze as her next words crash into him—

“Joe was like that.”

Ace feels himself trip, found himself up against a wall. Breathes hard. Tries to reconcile this: his knowledge that Immortan Joe had tried so hard to provide for them all, against imagining him touching his Boss like the Mechanic did, with so little respect. Imagining her frozen and queasy, like she had been that day, and the Immortan not stopping.

Tries to reconcile several thousand days worth of memories against that.

His stomach tries to to fold itself small and cram itself up his throat. He tries to swallow it back down.

The Immortan had given them shelter where there were none, and a way of life worth living despite how quickly it runs down. Ace would have thought the Immortan would be cautious with his prized breeders, like how the Repair Boys work their rides, gentle and reverent, knowing that every part was precious and hard-won no matter its origins, no matter how much chrome remains.

Imperators sometimes took their crew up to their room for a Use. It was to be Something, but nobody had expected that from Furiosa. After she’d been with the Immortan, what Use could she have for War Boys? How could they hope to even try to live up to Him?

She’d led the whole crew up after coming out of their second successful run, and they’d been taken aback at her stamina— _she wanted the whole crew?_ — but willing. They’d entered her sunset-lit room, with its opening to the outside and circulating air, like raw blackthumbs in their first garage bay, tentative and awed and unsure of their welcome. But in the end she’d only wanted them to be in her quarters to rest, to _repair_ ; in hindsight, perhaps because the Mechanic’s room had been suffocating to her.

Furiosa hums, considering, eyes vacant, swaying where she stood.

“No, Joe was _worse_ ,” she cut into his thoughts, voice low and flat. “You had to pretend you liked it. And everybody told you to be grateful for his attention. Nobody… _nobody_ saw.”

Ace feels sightless with trying to wrap his mind around this, trying to place this new information into his memories and feeling his memories _twist_. Every look, every reaction cast in a different light, like the warp of the Citadel at dawn versus dusk— shadow and light hiding and revealing different aspects.

When eventually the crew had folded around her, and the Boss had started accepting the Useful comfort they offered, they’d imagined themselves always falling short of what she’d received from the Immortan Joe. She’d accepted their touch so stiffly that each of them thought they’d been lacking until one of the younger ones broke, asking for advice.

Asking her how the Immortan had touched her, so they might do the same.

She’d gone cold and expressionless, and had been distant with them for days afterward, like she couldn’t stand their proximity. Her reaction always seemed particularly strong to him and he’d hadn’t known how to rationalize it except that they’d fallen so far short.

It had shamed them at the time to realize that they weren’t just individually failing her, that they’d done so as a unit, as a whole.

The Ace had stepped in before they’d all decided to do something stupid like throw themselves off the rock, and yelled at them to try harder then, or _different_ , because their Imperator was different. Their Imperator had been a prized breeder who’d _known_ Joe.

They’d thrashed their heads wondering how the Immortan Joe might’ve been better for her; protective they’d thought, like they’d treat the most valuable of rides. Gentle, like handling the rare rubber hose or timing belts. He’d ride her with care for her limits, they’d thought. He’d listen to her every sound, finetune his handling until she purred.

They tried to be that for her, to be worthy of the Immortan, for her. And after a long period of distrust she’d eventually found them to be a close enough proxy to Joe, or so Ace had thought.

Thought wrongly, he knows now.

All those little moments he hadn’t seen, or had seen but not recognized.

He remembers the first time when Sprocket, long since gone to Valhalla, had spent a long time with his face between her legs, and there had been moans, sounds they’d been sure were good. Finally she’d pulled Ace close and buried her face against his neck, and she’d gasped and shuddered and sobbed, and he’d realised with something of horror that the wetness he felt on his skin was from _tears_ . Had they _completely fucked it up?_

But she’d blindly pulled Sprocket up against her too, until she was bracketed by their bodies, and she hadn’t moved or spoken for a long time, and finally drifted off to sleep. Ace had thought for sure that the tears had been because it had reminded her of how the Immortan used to make her feel. She’d requested it often after that time, which seemed to confirm it.

Had their fumbling attempts back then instead been the first time that Furiosa had _ever_ , since coming to the Citadel, received regard that did not echo the Mechanic’s? The memory of that man’s hand on their Boss’ hip still repulses him, and if his Imperator had had _worse_ , if that was what being a breeder for the Immortan was _like_ …

He tries to imagine what it might’ve been like if he’d actually been like Joe, Furiosa under him and angry, stone-faced and sick, and what kind of person you'd have to be to _not stop_ —

gorge rises up in his throat.

Because he _knows_ what kind of person. He’d seen it in some of the War Boys and never let those even come close to consideration for crew. The idea of those Boys around even other _crewmates_ , let alone Furiosa...

The dull horror crashes through Ace in waves. He would think he wrapped his mind around it, and it’d slip off, and he finds some new aspect of it that crushes him from another angle.

He remembers the way she'd tremble at each new touch, when the Comfort had first started. How even later each new crew member had needed to— Ace had thought she'd wanted them to prove themselves in battle before they were allowed near her, before they were worthy of touching her, but it all seemed so different now.

They had tried so hard to touch her the way they'd thought the Immortan must have touched her, and all that time she'd been learning how to enjoy being touched at all. It had never even occurred to him at the time, but he wondered now if the reason Sprocket had been the first to be allowed to truly touch the Boss, to find ways to make her feel Good, was because Sprocket'd had no gearstick.

He forced his mind's eye away from the odd, lost look he'd seen in her eyes that first time she'd let him and Sprocket into her quarters for Comfort but hadn't known what to do with them, and landed on the mental image of the short, brown-skinned Wife he now knew as Toast.

And recoiled. The Boss had brought the girl— she'd known— she'd _known_ and had no choice but to—

He remembered them wiping the stench of scorched flesh from her hair. They'd thought she'd been _jealous_. That they were comforting her for missing the Immortan's attentions.

He's distracted from his thoughts by a painfully stifled cough, and when he glances up Furiosa has moved to leaning against the wall as well. She's next to him, the wall is barely propping her up, she's looking worn leaf-thin. He wonders how with all the misunderstanding, they'd managed not to fuck up a lot worse than they had, that she’s still willing to be so near him.

He sees the moment her knees give and instinctively reaches out to catch her by the arm, help her down onto the mattress. Helps her prop up her torso onto a cushion so she'll breath a little easier. He sits down, his ribs screaming. Keeps an arm's length of space between them.

She sounds breathless and flat and tired. "I didn't think you'd understand, without having lived it."

"But now you think I might understand, or we wouldn't be having this conversation.” Ace says dully, mind still ticking over, “Even half-dead, you'd’ve shredded us where we stood if you'd thought we would be still loyal to Joe."

"Not so much as that," she turns her eyes towards him finally, and they are liquid.

He looks at her. Concedes, "Maybe not so much as that." Maybe simply let a sandstorm take them instead, unwilling to touch them.

They sit there for a while quietly.

"What changed?" Ace has to ask.

"There was... a war boy, who'd caught up to us. Seemed to understand. After it was.... explained to him enough." Furiosa closes her eyes. "And a man who…" she needs a moment to catch her breath. "Who understood without much... being said at all." There’s something about the line of her neck that reminds Ace of how she looked after a good hard fight that she’d won, grimly satisfied even while hurt.

He's aching with the thought that two men merited her explanations while he had been left to make his mistakes in ignorance. Why them? Why not her Ace? He can't ask her that, he's too afraid of what she might answer.

"Think I'd like to meet these two, Boss," Ace suggests, then catches how her shoulders tensed. "Well, if they're still alive."

A shoulder lifts. Falls.

 _Ah_. Right then.

Her eyes keep going glassy and unfocused, and she keeps snapping back, as if her body is insisting on sleep but she is holding it off with all her considerable willpower.

It takes him a moment to realise she is waiting for _him_ \- for him to say something, perhaps to show her how things are going to be between them. He doesn't think he has ever knowingly held so much power over her, and it's startling, something he needs to think about. Things between them have changed and he knows it will take time for his injured pride and trust to heal, just as much as it will for the injured ribs to heal.

"Sleep, Boss," he says softly. She stubbornly resists, fighting to keep awake, and he can't help but smile. He may not be confident he understands her anymore, may not be sure if if he ever did at all, but _this_ Furiosa he knows. 

"Stubborn."

Finally he moves over to her side, cups his broad hand over the top of her head. She makes a small, dazed sound, and he pats her head gently, once, twice. 

"Sleep, Boss," he says again, and this time she finally allows her eyes to drift shut.

Ace settles down an arms length away from her, uneasy with being near to her when he's just learning how deeply wrong he's been about her. What other signals has he missed, ignored, attributed to the wrong reasons? He can't touch her right now, he can't be sure she wants him to, so he lays down on the other side of the mattress and tries to calm the maelstrom of thoughts in his mind. He doesn't succeed very well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem is _From Green To Green_ by Sohrab Sepehry


	12. Pumped

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Pumped** : 1) To have such an accumulation of metabolic waste products in the forearm, that forming even a basic grip becomes impossible. A climber who is pumped will find it difficult to hold on, and may struggle to lift or clip a rope. 2) (Psychology) A feeling of anticipation and energy before a challenging climb.
> 
> _"We... weren't her... crew…?" Capable said cautiously._
> 
> _Rachet swallowed uneasily. "But she— she picked you. For her plans." Stumbled himself into the words, “she picked you over us.”_
> 
> _"For the coup," Kompass said suddenly, his voice hard and angry. "Right?”_

Kompass rappels down from the Repair Boys’ levels, the answers there were no more or less that what he’d been hearing all day after he’d slipped off at the end of the Council:

“Yeah of course we’ll support Furiosa, knows her way around an engine, she does. Respects the belts and tires too, doesn’t run them dry like _some_ Imperators.” A wad of spit lands on the ground as they move between the cars, “Think they endless, the boofhead maggots, then scream at ya when y’can’t come up with ‘em fast.”

Toolbox clopped forward yelling at the Boys on repairs for this or that, unmindful of Kompass trailing after him. They’ve had dealings before, Kompass being part of an active crew with a dedicated blackthumb crew that fell under Toolbox’s larger purview, much the way that Imperator crews fell under the Imperator Prime.

They were mostly amicable for all that the metal-legged blackthumb usually reacted to War Boys with defiant bitterness. Word was, the man had been War Boy trainee before a scouting run had a hot blade sheared off both his legs, cauterizing them behind itself so he couldn’t even be properly Witnessed. He’d then affixed his legs with springy backwards C-shaped things that had let him run even faster than before and gripped for his climbs decently.

But they were too fragile for war: the first trip out one of them got snapped in two.

It was the only set they’d found intact in the Mall, others had long since been broken apart and reworked. Nowadays, he’d one peg leg and one springy, and Toolbox could still maneuver at a decent clip by bouncing off that one leg, and perhaps he could still do war, perhaps have had a seat on the Salvage car with the other half-shredded half-lives. But that meant being bolted down to a seat.

In the choice between that, or being able to move, Toolbox chose movement and being unWitnessed, settling into a support role. It was an incomprehensible choice that no War Boy could forget or let Toolbox forget.

Even Furiosa’s crew didn’t much know what to make of the idea, but didn't much rag on the man, partially due to the Looks their Boss would give them should they do. Mostly... because they’d squirm, or they’d shut each other up, remembering how one or another had been lifted away from a mediocre death, choosing movement instead of a witness. How they would help crew, gladly, but found themselves unable to speak about it to someone who hadn’t been there. Found themselves glad that very few were allowed on their runs, to see.

Their Imperator’s crew was successful however, no matter their unseemly methods. They never came back with losses; even from the very first all vehicles came back more or less running. It’d certainly endeared her to the Repair Boys, and moreover when their Imperator would come down herself and get her own fingers black right alongside them.

“You tell her to come back down when she can,” Toolbox continued, unmindful of Kompass’ thoughts, “Would like to speak with her, ask her some things.”

“Oh?” Kompass asked warily.

Toolbox caught his look and bellowed a laugh, smacking him on the shoulder, “Nothing bad, just… a friendly question.”

“Really.”

“One that wasn’t asked before she took off,” Toolbox muttered, and shrugged, looking like a long-evening’s watch over a bunkmate’s fevers.

Kompass had only hummed and made excuses and Toolbox waved him off after smashing his head against Kompass’ in camaraderie.

The Chop Boys from the mess halls had no opinion either way so longs as they could keep near the cookery, and the supplies kept coming. The Drummer Boys-in-training seemed to welcome the lack of other drummers and the potential for more celebration and war. And the soft lazy Greenthumbs only hummed in that aggravating and slow way of theirs, and muttered something about some ‘tips’ Furiosa gave them at some point or another, which Kompass assumed she knew from her time in the Vault.

He’d brushed that mention aside and asked them, pointedly, “Do you support her, then?”

“Hmm, maybe so,” Trowel, one of the lower ranked gardeners glanced at the others around them, and nodded, scratching the back of their thumbnail across their eyebrow, “maybe so. But y’think she would’ve asked this of us personally, no?” Their sun-leathered skin went pinched around the eyes.

Kompass blew out a breath, and slowed down some himself, “She’s been injured, all told.” Then he blinked and shook himself, jaw tight, “but she’s bouncing back fast. You know how she’s survived her arm getting shorn off, and came back stronger.” He said this with defiance. He said this knowing that they had to appear strong.

Trowel only hummed and stared at him steadily, “I don’t mean right now. Mmm no, not now. Heard how she’s ailing, them old ones been coming around and asking for certain herbs.”

“Then?”

“Thennn,” Trowel drawled, “why didn’t she ask us before she set off on this thing, mmm?”

Kompass couldn’t answer because he didn’t know why not even her crew had been asked, he still felt gutted at the idea, himself, but it’s not like he could say that she didn’t even ask her _own_ crew—

“Ah, so that’s how it is.” Their hand gently patted Kompass’ shoulder and he flinched lightly as he was shocked out of his thoughts. “Tell her that we ask that she come by again sometime. Tell her that we ask her to see us personally.”

The murmurs in agreement rose around them from the other greenthumbs and Kompass found himself stumbling out of their circle.

He’d taken a deep breath and thought maybe the conversations had all gone smoother than he’d expected due to the widow’s influences. They’ve at least spoken to the greenthumbs and the mess hall crews, it was good to see that they weren’t just taking the council representatives at their word and had gone to see the individuals for themselves.

But now comes the harder part.

Kompass needs to speak to The Fixer, a pale, emaciated man with sagged skin and legs gone twisted, the one who slides Between. Whenever the head Repair boy can’t find this or that part, nor the Storage, nor could be salvaged from the Mall, ask it of The Fixer and he’ll Fix that situation for you, provided you have something of enough value to trade.

The man makes the back of Kompass’ neck break out in a sweat. Something of the way the man forms words makes him think he’d like to take a bite from whatever nearby living flesh.

In this case Kompass himself.

“Furiosa,” the Fixer says, “sent _you_ to see if I support her, this new… _Regime_. That she is building.”

The pale man’s fingertips are blackened as they sharpen a knife, idly. Kompass feels himself more threatened by the fingers, than the knife. He thinks the black isn’t the honest black of grease, looks a little too rust, too red, for that.

“Yes,” Kompass manages, and isn’t entirely happy with how the sound comes out. The Fixer’s fingers come to a point, sharp, like teeth, like eyes, and he feels it like a scriiiiitch up the back of his neck.

“Been hearing this and that— about how those widows have been managing things. A little odd, don’t you think?”

“Plenty odd, actually,” he shrugs at this, voice neutral, there’d been many things in that council that he hadn’t fully understood, feeling out of place and unnatural, but the women had meant well.

He doesn’t think the Fixer means for anything ‘well’, unless he was served too.

“I’m glad we’re in agreement on this,” the small eyes twinkle at him as if in fondness, “You’ll look out for both our interests, I presume?”

Kompass lies as best he can.

When they shake on it however, the Fixer sharply drags him in by the grip and stares him down with his bloodshot eyes, “Tell me though, why she didn’t stage this at the Citadel eh? We’d given her a good hearing. Not all’s us drinks old Joe’s spew.”

Saying so is blasphemy however, and makes Kompass shift a bit uncomfortably, unable to answer. First for the insult to Joe’s memory and second because Kompass still doesn’t even know why their Boss didn’t tell her own crew, let alone the rest of the Citadel. He would also really prefer to not be quite so close to the man, the sagging folds of skin even more disturbing up close, the fingers sharp and deadly against his own.

“Ah, what am I thinking, talking to a War Boy like that,” the supplier of Hidden Things laughs, “Though thought you different, being one of Furiosa’s. You nevermind and just tell her I’ll support her.”

“You’ll support the Imperator,” Kompass repeats numbly, trying not to give away his tension and tug himself out of the pale man’s grip.

"Exactly that, _if_ she keeps the wheel steady like we’re used to. Heard about that whole incident with Corpus, left the little feca alive, did she?”

“A bit out of the loop on that one,” he lies, feeling it like a rake down his spine.

“Doesn’t matter then, let her know it was good idea, he knows a lot, remembers it all too... just keep him out of the gears of anything himself and it’ll run smooth.” The pale man frowns and lets him go finally, and his entire skin shivers like trying to shake the touch off, “see to keeping them milking mothers out of the works as well.”

“Yeah?” Kompass asks.

“They’re pretty things, but dumb. You don’t want to trust important stuff to such like that.”

Kompass presses his mouth closed and hums neutrally.

“Well? Why are you still here? Go deliver your report.” The Fixer waves him off and swivels back to his things like a spider’s crawl, and Kompass backs away from the room as fast as was polite.

As he gets handholds to climb himself away from that place, Kompass finds he doesn’t understand why his stomach squirms at the thought of the milking mothers in the council referred to in such tones. He thinks it might be his tumors, but they’d hadn’t shifted and spread like others’ had; he’s had them for as long as he remembered and nothing’s ever come from it. Except for pissing him off for no good reason and making him do things he doesn’t even understand.

He _still_ doesn’t understand why he’d tossed Rachet off the War Rig. All he remembers is the sandstorm in front of them and seeing Ace yelling at the Boss and seeing him getting pistolwhipped away from the Rig. A splash of red. Next thing he knew, Kompass’d found himself grabbing two handfuls of Rachet’s shorts and flinging him to starboard, away from the explosions on the other side.

Which only lead to getting socked in the face and called _filth_ , and tossed off the Rig himself by the remaining crew.

He doesn’t remember much after that. Except slowly waking up from a mound of sand. Finding Rachet. Finding Ace. Kompass didn’t know how much of Ace’s subsequent silence and apathy was disorientation from his wounds versus disorientation from Furiosa traitoring them— but the upshot was that Kompass ending up with the decision-making. So he dragged them all towards the Citadel.

It just felt right, and he’d work out the rest when he got there, he’d thought.

And Kompass _had_ been right in the end. When they arrived, no one cared, and Kompass was able to secure some boltholes for them all just in case. And when the new leadership arrived, they _still_ didn’t care until Kompass barged into Furiosa’s room and saw that their Boss had seemed to have _always_ cared.

But the whole thing didn’t make sense.

 _Why didn’t she_ _**tell** _ _them_?

* * *

Kompass paced up to the Imperator's quarters and barged in, not pausing to knock.

Ace had a knife in his hand, looking a little wild around the eyes before he recognised Kompass. Huh. He didn't have time to think on that right now.

"Ace. Need to talk to ya. Not—" he flicked a glance at Furiosa, asleep behind Ace. She looked grey and exhausted.

Ace hauled himself to his feet. He wasn't supposed to be up yet, but nothing much could keep War Boys down and this was important. Kompass led him to an alcove a short way away from her door.

"What is it?" Ace leaned up against the wall. He looked uneasy, eyes flicking back in the direction of Furiosa's quarters like he was simultaneously relieved to be away and feeling guilty for letting the Boss out of his sight. 

"I went 'round talkin to people," it burst out of Kompass, he _feels_ his language falling back to its roots but can’t help it with how strongly it hit him that, "She didn't talk t'none of 'em! I thought maybe she'd left us out of th'loop, dunno why she'd do that, don't make no _sense_ , but she didn't get anybody else in either!"

Ace frowned sideways like Kompass wasn't hitting true on what he was talking about, like Ace disagreed for some reason. Which was all farcical of him, the Ace’d always been quickest on her defense. That he’d even let her be shredded like that, feverish and wan all these long two days, that _any_ of them let her be shredded like that, had been reving up his blood. Why didn’t she let them just hear—

"The plan - the _coup_ !" Kompass yelled. "You'd think she'd have it set up, right, so she'd have supporters? _Someone_ to help? None of 'em knew!"

"That's becau—"

"What, _nobody_ in the Citadel was good enough? What kind of mediocre plan _was_ this? She was just gonna drive out there, get the whole War Party after her and bargain on somehow makin' it back?"

"I don't think that was—"

"Her plan? Did she even have a plan? Was she out of her _mind_ ?!" Kompass hissed, fired up at the thought all over again. At the idea that they weren’t trusted, _none_ of them, _none_ of them Worthy, "Why wouldn't she _tell_ us? We coulda made—" he flung up his hands, "dunno, a better plan! Something' not put together with wishes and old women!"

He still struggled to believe that she hadn't told them, and apparently not because she'd had people she thought were better to trust with this, but because she'd preferred goin' at it alone. It was something she would’ve kicked a guy off the crew for.

"I gotta go find Rachet," he decided abruptly, not seeing Ace's grimace.

* * *

"Why d'you want pants, anyway? Ya'lls clothes are so soft and shine."

The women exchanged looks Rachet couldn't decipher, and then Capable said, "They're clothes for people who don't go anywhere and don't do anything. We need pants."

That made sense to Rachet. They'd been Protected and Treasured. Now they had lost that, they needed something else to protect them... And there’s no place at all for them to put tools and shanks and suchlike in all their finery, would ruin the drape of it entire. Rachet hums at their loss, some. He was surprised they didn't seem more upset with the Boss for stealing them away from their lives.

“Y’sure you don’t want me to just fetch the pants for ya tho?”

“Very sure.”

“We want to see all parts of the Citadel, not just the tops.”

“The parts Joe locked us away in.”

Rachet hadn't seen the breeders walk around without one of the older women to guard them, before this. Were they even allowed? He supposed it wasn't up to him. He was just here to help them find their way and make sure nothing happened to them. 

“But isn’t it… nicer up there?” Rachet’s leading them lower towards the Immortan’s Storage where they dole out gear in trade. It was near some of the sleeping ledges and it wasn’t like what these prized breeders were used to, probably, even if they were some of the best the War Boys got.

"Not if you can't leave."

“Why would y’wanna to leave though?” Rachet mused out loud, "But I guess y’got stole. Dunno why the Boss did that.”

The widows made a strange face that he blinked at, shrugged at. Maybe they were confused at Boss’ thinking too.

Rachet approached Stuffs. The heavyset Quartermaster was leaning against a metal table, his bulk blocking the path to the room of clothes and small loose salvage that crews collected from runs, either off opponent’s bodies and vehicles or off War Boys who’d been Witnessed and reclaimed. All that they found in the wastes belonged to Immortan Joe, but the War Boys have permission to trade for it; as gatekeeper, Joe had chosen Stuffs to act as a living door. While normally weight was a sign of luxury, on Stuffs it was taken to extremes; a cowled man usually at the quartermaster’s elbow, handing him yet another bottle of mother’s milk. another biscuit of rare grains. Stuffs always grimaced at the food pressed into his hands, the ungrateful wretch, and no one much gave the Imperator’s son any sympathy. Born lucky that one, and placed high, and his abundance swept around him.

Nobody much liked making contact with any bit of him, this spoiled thing that’ll die soft, and made their trades as quick as possible, passing along whatever goods they had in exchange with their fingertips as Stuffs spun in place to confer with the War Pups manning the Immortan’s Storage on the other side.

But the Immortan was killed by Furiosa, and these women were, as much as it twisted him up, those she’d picked on that run. The Storage should be theirs then, as favored crew, as practically Imperators.

“Hey Stuffs!” Rachet hailed, for once Stuffs didn’t have a cowled man attending him. “These shinies would like some pants, think ya got any that’d fit?”

“You have trade?”

“Don’t need trade, this is all theirs now, all Furiosa’s, ain’t it?”

“Say’s who.”

“Eh? What’s this. Furiosa’s done shredded Joe…” a hard swallow, “tossed ‘im to the Wretched. So what’s his is hers now.” Like it would if any War Boy made a direct challenge beyond the Pits.

“Ain’t. Least I hears, the water is the milkers, and their milk too. And these breeders ‘ere’s got the green all locked up. This is my share, eh?”

“It’s the Immortan’s share! We all worked to collect it, every last War Boy!”

Toast spoke up, “But they make you _trade_ for it?”

“Yes?” Rachet frowned, “Without Immortan Joe, there would be no raids.”

“Well what about each War Boy’s share of the takings?” Toast pressed.

Rachet shrugs, “Aqua-cola, meals, enough salvage to fit in a pocket.”

“And you use the little bit you earn to trade for… more salvage? The same that you’ve collected for the Immortan in the first place?” Capable asked gently. “Don’t you think that’s unfair?”

“That’s how you earn your keep. Be useful.” Rachet didn’t understand why this was so confusing to the breeders, was it really that complex? “Look, Stuffs, just give ‘em their pants, work out the tithes later.”

But the quartermaster wasn’t even facing him.

“You girls,” Stuffs said, looking at the breeders intently, “Women, I should say, you know a thing or two do you?”

“We might,” Toast said, chin up, meeting his gaze squarely. “We might have an idea of how everyone could breathe a little easier, with Joe gone.”

“Heard there was a scrap over the water ‘n’ milk with Corpus. Heard ya’ll won.” A giant puff of breath, like a mountain sighing, “And you didn’t keep the liquid; why?”

“The milking mothers know it best. They’ve lived with it, for many thousand days, how it works, how much would flow.”

“You don’t think they’ll keep it from the rest of us?”

“Would you keep them from having pants, when they come down and ask you?” that dagger singsonged. "Would I keep either you or them from having greens? It goes off. Needs to be shared."

Capable nodded, “An equal base share, that can increase with meritorious acts. Enough so that everyone can do what they do best, move freely not limited by false constraints.” She looked at Stuffs levelly, “The Wasteland itself does enough of that for us all, doesn’t it?”

Stuff just looked back with doubt in his face, “Think you can just say that and make it happen? Think there’s not people perfectly happy with the way things have always been done?”

Toast snorts, “Well we can’t _make_ it happen if you don’t give us some pants, first.”

There was a long pause and then he suddenly bursts out laughing.

“Hah, I like that,” he nodded, amusement in his voice, then turned, a slow pivot and a hand reaches backwards. A small white hand pops up with four pairs of pants, items which he grabbed and passes over. “Here. Some green would not be amiss, and I’ll wait on if you can hold up the rest of those promises.”

Capable takes the items from him and clasps his hand in agreement, the large palm dwarfing hers, “It’s agreed.”

Rachet stares at her wide-eyed, at their clasped hands, Stuffs does too.

And then he gently and awkwardly withdraws it. “Um. Well. Yes.”

“Later then!” Rachet shouted as he hurried the breeders away, never knew when the lug would change his mind. Didn’t know where the flame-haired one got the idea to touch Stuffs, Joe’s widows sure knew nothing. “Careful now,” he said friendly-like, “Lets find some better area for you all to change up. Deserve better than the likes of here.” 

The women whispered excitedly among themselves as they walked.

"Told you we wouldn't need Janey."

"You were so great, Toast."

"So were you. I don't think the idea of sharing makes sense to anybody here."

"We will make it make sense to them."

Rachet found a deep alcove where they could change, and turned his back while he waited. He heard rustling behind him and murmuring as the women helped each other

"So where next?" He liked it when they talked to him, the way they seemed to be interested in his replies.

"There're a repair cave, isn't there? We want to gather material for a new arm for Furiosa."

"Or ask somebody there to do it, at least."

"Boss made her arm herself," Rachet frowned. "Always fiddlin' with it, too. Even Toolbox can't make anything she'd be happy with."

"I know, that's why we only want the materials."

"We figure she'll get frustrated with the resting once her fever breaks, so working on a new arm might give her something to focus on."

"Huh." that was… so clever he wished he'd thought of it himself. “That’s chrome, woulda never thoughta that. No wonder she took ya’ll on as crew."

There was a heavy-feeling silence.

"Maybe she'll stay down to rest for a little longer that way, you know? The stories Ace would tell once he gets rolling, swears the Boss never stayed much still even when she lost her arm. Out of the Blood Shack like a shot, she was." Not that he could blame her. Nobody wanted to stay around Organic longer'n needed. “A pain in Ace’s throat if she’s ever injured. Always moving around and aggravatin’ it."

A question drifted out at last, “Her crew always takes care of her like that?”

“Try not to,” Rachet laughed, to another weird silence, “That’s what _we’re_ for. Throw ourselves in-between anything aiming for her, when all’s said. Better us than her.”

“Oh,” It was a low kind of sound, like when Rachet would give someone something they didn’t expect because they were feeling mediocre that day. _How strange, why would the widows feel any sort of mediocre?_

“Just like any Imperator would for the Immortan himself.”

However even _he_ could feel the awkward of that silences as the sound of the cloth stilled. _Oh._

“Well, perhaps not so much the Boss.” Rachet shifted from foot to foot. The Redeemer gave them everything, it’d would be blasphemy for him to have said as much a couple days ago, but now it’s their truth. He still didn’t know how to fit what he knew now into what he knew before. Thinking about it much made his head ache.

After a few minutes Toast walked out of the alcove, dressed in pants and a wrapped chest coverin' of the soft cloth. She balled up another length of it in her hands as she looked at him piercingly.

"Y’don't want that anymore?" Rachet blurted, nodded at her hand.

She shook her head.

"Can I—" his hand twitched toward it before he could stop it.

She gave him a wary look. "Why, 'cause I've _worn_ it?"

"Wh-what?"

"I don't think it's a perv thing," Capable said, coming out of the alcove, fussing with her belt to make the weight settle on her hips right. "Nux said—" she swallowed. "Said that he'd never felt anything so soft."

"Hmm." Toast stared at Rachet, and he shuffled a little uncomfortably, not sure why she was so suspicious. Then she finally held out the balled cloth to him. He lightly ran his fingers over it, feeling his callouses catch. Stroked with the back of his fingers instead, making a sound of wonder.

"Feels shine."

The possibilities of a material so soft opened up to him. A new top for the Boss? Something to cushion the chafing of her arm, when she built a new one. No matter how she'd tinkered with the old one, her stump had always been sore after runs, the belts leaving red welts in her shoulder. Thinking of chafing, he knew Kompass' lumps had turned wearing his belts uncomfortable, if he had some of this stuff he could do something—

Toast's face did something he couldn't quite make sense of, but she pressed the cloth into his touch.

"Here then. Take it."

He took it and stuffed the white material into one of his big cargo pockets, "T-thanks."

The other two breeders came out of the alcove, looking pleased with the trousers and the way they were all covered up on top.

"We asked her to." Burst out of the youngest one, with the black hair.

“Huh?”

“What you asked before, why Furiosa ‘did that’. Why she took us away: because we asked her to.”

"Huh." Rachet blinked. Mentally poked at that thought but it didn’t get any clearer. "Why'd she agree? She's always still sad 'bout missin' the Immortan herself."

Only then apparently the Boss had shredded the Immortan, and that made no _sense_ , Rachet couldn't think about that, it made his head ache.

It suddenly grew quiet, and he became aware that they were all looking at him.

"She was _sad_?"

"She _missed_ him?"

Rachet felt flustered and wasn't sure why.

"We weren't to talk about the Immortan," he fumbled. "Especially when— when she'd been to report to him. Made her all sad and quiet, because she missed his…" he waved a hand, trying to remember what Ace had said. " ‘Regard’."

Furiosa must have been so jealous of these wives. Rachet would’ve been. He wondered if that was why she stole them? Maybe she'd been planning to take their place? Maybe he'd refused to take her back and that's why she'd shredded him?

No, that didn't seem right. Who would say no to the Boss?

"Rachet!"

He whipped around to see Kompass bearing down on them with long, heavy paces. Rachet often felt like other people spoke a secret language without words that he'd never learned, but even he could tell the other Warboy was angry, or frustrated, something like that.

The women shifted to behind Rachet. He wasn't surprised - they'd met Kompass during the council, but hadn't interacted much. And Kompass was a big guy, not as tall as the Ace but at least as wide in the shoulders. He could be intimidating; hell, when Rachet had first been positioned in his section on the rig, he'd been intimidated by his new section boss himself. Right now he looked like an oncoming storm. The one called Toast stepped forward, a hand going to the pistol at her side

"Hey! Kompass!" Rachet called, voice a forced upbeat, hoping to head off an explosion. "You been to talk to Toolbox?"

Kompass' jaw worked.

"Yes."

"We're just goin' there."

Kompass grunted and turned down the hallway that would lead to the head Repair Boy's domain. The women followed, quiet now and tense. Rachet wanted them to talk again, liked how their voices sounded when they were relaxed and pleased, liked how he felt when they did that around him. 

"Boss shake you about on the perches?" he asked them, grinning a little.

He received four identical confused looks when he dropped back to walk beside them.

"Did she what?"

"Bounce the rig around a little, make ya hold on extra. Boss always likes to do that when she's got new crew.” Rachet mused, and perked up, “This one time we had a guy try out, real tough warboy, got staples 'n scars all over, big stories, and he thought it'd be so easy. Kept struttin’ away from his position. All the time just tryin' to get the Boss' attention, like she wanna be busy watchin' crew when she's gotta be watchin' the road, scanning the horizon, right?”

Rachet looked over and they nodded, a bit slowly, so he continued. “One point, he's standing on the hood of the rig with 'is lance out, blockin' the Boss' sightlines, _again_ , and the Ace was tryin' to get him to shift, but the Boss—" he chuckled at the memory. "She just done stomp the brakes.”

“Sent him flyin' right off,” Rachet made a woosh sound and a zooming motion with his hand, “up over the cab and—" he smacked his fist into his palm with a thwack sound, "right against the tank. Morsov hadda peel ‘im off."

“Come to think of it, some older crew said he’d tried out before. Forgot his name though.” Rachet said, and looked to Kompass. "You remember 'im, the guy with the face?" but the man didn’t look willing to jump in. The women were exchanging looks among themselves. “She ever tell y'all that one?”

"We... weren't her... crew…?" Capable said cautiously.

Rachet swallowed uneasily, not sure why this line of conversation suddenly felt like a bad idea. "But she— she picked you. For her plans." Stumbled himself into the words, “she picked you over us.”

"For the coup," Kompass said suddenly, his voice hard and angry. "Right? You knew things, were taught things in the Vault.”

There was some kind of language going on between the women, something Rachet didn't understand at all and the pause only seemed to make Kompass more agitated.

Then Toast said, "The coup was… not the original plan."

"We asked her to take us away from here."

"It was never the plan to come back."

"We're real sorry that she— that you were sacrificed for our escape."

" _Escape_ ," Kompass repeated flatly.


	13. Gronked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Gronked: Accidentally going off-route while leading and becoming lost on a rock face in an area much more difficult than the climb being attempted._
> 
> "You shoulda felt honoured to be Treasured by the Immortan!"
> 
> It was startling how quickly the younger Warboy, the one who'd been helpful and chatty and seemed so genuinely fond of Furiosa, changed when they made any sort of suggestion that Joe hadn't been so wonderful. 
> 
> "And what do you think that 'treasuring' means, huh?" Dag asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for victim blaming, unreliable narrators, faulty logic, and other fucked up warboy thought processes. People who think they are things struggle to understand consent. Basically, Warboys trying every possible explanation that keeps their 'Joe is the Best' worldview standing, with a hefty dose of victim blaming.

“Yes, _escape_.”

“We had to get away from him.”

“Away from Joe.”

The War Boys took one step back away from them and Cheedo watched Rachet’s body language close up, watched Kompass’s anger grow stiff. She looked to the Dag who’d simply stared at the two, one and then the other, head tilted.

“Why would ya want to get _away_ from Joe?” the younger War Boy asked, his voice gone hard. “wouldn’t that be the best place to be?”

“It’s no place to be,” Toast spat. “I’d rather live in the wastes.”

Cheedo didn’t _really_ want to live in the wastes; it was more comfortable in the Citadel. But Joe had hung over everything there, like the poison he’d professed he’d kept out for them with their air filters and their clean water and food. It was enough to make everything taste of ash, and Cheedo didn’t even realize it until the night she’d spent under the stars with shared food and easy laughter.

"You shoulda felt honoured to be Treasured by the Immortan!"

It was startling how quickly the younger Warboy, the one who'd been helpful and chatty and seemed so genuinely fond of Furiosa, changed when they made any sort of suggestion that Joe hadn't been so wonderful.

"And what do you think that 'treasuring' _means_ , huh?" Dag asked. "That belly-soft wretch forced us. _Hurt_ us."

There was a second of blinking as this was processed, and then Rachet burst out, "Well then maybe you shoulda given Him what He asked for! So He coulda been gentle-like with ya, like He were with the Boss! Weren't Joe's fault you couldn't hack it as His wives—"

Cheedo made a choked noise as Dag hissed, Toast went pale with fury, and Capable reminded herself that these men were brainwashed, and that of her sisters, she was probably in the best position to remember that.

"—the Boss, it was just she couldn't have children, she loved 'im, woulda been with 'im forever if she could'ave!"

"Did she _tell_ you that?" Capable said, before Toast could react, her hand having drifted to her gun. Capable looked from Rachet to the other one, Kompass, who’d backed even further away from them. "Did Furiosa tell you that she loved Joe? That he was gentle?"

Not that it meant anything if Furiosa _had_ told them that - she'd obviously had to lie to her crew about some things to get accepted by them. But Capable couldn't imagine Furiosa opening up about this at all, not even to trusted crew. Not into this kind of detail. She'd barely confirmed to them in the vault that she'd been one of Joe's wives, and only after Angharad had asked her directly.

"N-no." She saw him think. The idea was obviously ingrained, but how had it started? "She didn't want— The Ace, he said—"

Kompass broke in, his jaw clenched with anger, his voice low and tight. "Said she was used to better'n us, so if we wanted to make her feel good we had to be as gentle as the Immortan."

Dag made a soft sound, and Toast tried not to react to this tacit admission that Furiosa had slept with her crew, in more ways than one. It wasn't anything they hadn't suspected, but from the sound of it it was also a very _different_ thing than they'd expected. Toast had pictured a swarm of Warboys, out only for their own satisfaction - how could it be different? They were made in Joe's image. It was hard to imagine Warboys being gentle with a woman; it was even harder to imagine them being concerned with making somebody feel good.

She wondered how that had come to be, after Joe; how Furiosa could stand grasping hands on her, let alone more than one pair.

"See, that's the thing," Dag said. "That smeg was old and weak and poxy and took that out on us whom he locked up. Joe never gave a hand full of sand about making us feel good."

Kompass blew out an angry breath through gritted teeth, like he realised he'd said more than he'd intended and that the response was more than he could hear and stalked away. The War Boy threw over his shoulder, like a lance, “That’s just ‘cause you weren’t _worthy_.”

Capable felt an odd, light feeling in her stomach as the hit landed, as she watched him go, a gut-sore wound at words that hurt more for the intent than their meaning; the insult falling short because her own worth and her own truths were never something she’d been concerned about, the locks on their Vault assured that. Around the hurt, she felt a swell of sympathy and pity for these men who were being confronted with how their God was so much less worthy than they'd always thought. Who had been comparing themselves to a false image for their entire lives. For all of the bigger Warboy's simmering rage, he hadn't intentionally intimidated them; he’d kept backing away the more agitated he got, like he was the one being attacked.

She wondered if this would have labeled him ‘soft’ in the eyes of his peers; she knew it would have in Joe’s.

“You’re _wrong_ ,” Rachet yelled out as well, turning his back on them, and they heard him mutter under his breath, “you _have_ to be." He half turned back around, biting out, "An’ he wasn’t ' _soft’,_ he wasn’t ‘ _poxy’_ . He _can’t_ have been.” He opened his mouth as if to say something more, but then snapped it back closed and ran after his fellow crew, spitting on the floor at their feet before he left.

Capable looked at her sisters. They looked back at her, thoughtful and angry and hurt and confused, and she felt the echo of it all inside herself.

* * *

Kompass stalks blindly down the hallways, turning at intersections more out of instinct and habit than with any real thought.

This is what he remembered: Ace and him going over new crew, the Ace with obvious judgement and Kompass quietly from the side, trying to get several sightlines on the guys and waiting for a particular moment, a particular light to hit their eyes, a particular tone to hit their voice when they say, “Boss.” The moment they turn crew.

Sometimes, they never do. Sometimes they resent the way the crew furls around the Imperator, and the fault lines in the crew become more and more obvious as some stop hanging out with the ones that don’t fall in, without quite knowing why.

These times the Ace would arrange for these members to staff the most dangerous perches. Perhaps crew reactions were slower from those supporting those positions, reflexes that weren’t as instant, a lunge that was a little less desperate. It’s not things that Kompass dwells on, but that he notices and then immediately tries to forget.

This is what he remembered: watching their Imperator go distant sometimes, and quiet. How the crew whispered about her past when she’s far away, what to avoid sayin' or doin' to not hurt her or anger her. She wouldn’t even lash out necessarily at the hurt, but do something much worse; if it were bad enough their Imperator would _forget_ you. Her gaze sliding past you, her briefings no longer mentioned you... And something in the eyes of crew agree that any trespass that merits such a thing means a death casually forgotten, unWitnessed.

This is what he remembered: Furiosa, reaching out to him and dragging him into their pile, many different times, many different days. It was usually the best sleep he’d have, within that nest of crew, waking up feeling solid and metallic and shiny and new.

This is what he remembered: Crank, when he was newly invited to her quarters, fumbling and grimacing, his gearstick not functioning right. Furiosa gesturing for him to come close, and saying, so soft only Kompass had overheard, "Don't have to. Only if you _want_." because this was not a Use like with the other Imperators, this was sexin' like it must have been with the Immortan. Crank had nodded in relief and shifted up to let her lean against him, while Kompass was only too happy to take his place.

This is what he remembered: Furiosa looking at him one night, contemplative, after he was dragged up next to her, face still wet with her liquid, prick at attention. He’d ignored the throb of it and curled up a little to avoid grinding it against her, getting ready to sleep if that's what she wanted. If she was done for the night he’d let himself come and then pass out, Kompass knew he was always fairly useless, after. But he found himself being rolled onto his back, and Furiosa saying "Don't move."

She’d climbed astride him with a determined look on her face. “Hold him still,” she ordered Ace and Boker. Kompass couldn’t wrap his mind around what was happening. They'd never— nobody had suggested, because they hadn't been Worthy, and that was fine. They were there to make her feel good. Oftentimes that made them feel good too, and the Boss liked that, long as she didn't feel like it was her responsibility to make them come. They'd get themselves off if they felt like it, or helped each other, until they all curled up together, sated and happy.

So this was—

Breedin' was dangerous if she wanted to stay Imperator, she couldn't risk getting a full belly, though he had the notion the scars on her meant it wasn't a risk for her anymore. Still, he could barely comprehend what was happening even as she'd sat herself on his hips, the wetness of her on his prick, pressing it against his belly, rocking back and forth a little. And he was thankful for Ace pressing his hips down, for Boker at his shoulders, because he’d _reared_ at the sensation. Or tried to.

She'd closed her eyes, seeming to wait for something, he didn't know what. But she seemed to find it, because she leaned up a little, reached to take him into her hand, align him.

And the look in her eyes had been… for a moment he could have sworn she'd hesitated. His fingers darted out, on instinct, to hold her hand while Ace reached down to guide him in instead, and her eyes had closed and her body slowly sank down onto him and he thought her trembling only noticeable to him because he’d trembled, too, at the sensations. She’d breathed out when she was fully seated and when she’d opened her eyes, they'd shined. He’d squeezed her hand.

Kompass remembered this and thought that the sisters had to be wrong. This was what it must have been like with Joe, careful and calm and so, so good.

They’d finally got it right enough to be worthy of her, of what the Immortan had done with her.

So the widows were _wrong_.

( _But then, why did she run?_ a little voice inside him asks, and that voice makes him so _angry_.)

* * *

“Ace!” Rachet opens the door and immediately gets yanked backwards by a hand over his mouth.

Kompass shoulders himself into the room and takes a look inside. Nods firmly and strides into the room hauling Rachet in with him, shutting the door quietly.

“Rachet?” Ace questions from the side of his mouth, looking at Kompass whose his face is revved, grill a full snarl.

“Ace, step out with me.” Kompass all but orders him.

“Kompass?” Ace’s taken aback, the man’s usually simmering with anger but this is the first time it’d come out as disrespect.

“Ace,” Rachet pleads, “You really should go, I’ll stay with th’Boss. You need to hear this.”

Both of the crew’s nearly vibrating, Rachet settles on Furiosa’s other side, his hand reaching out to lightly pet her hand as if reassuring himself, but otherwise not touching her. Ace looks at the distance between them and then up at Rachet’s face and the younger man seems afraid.

 _Furiosa’s in danger_ , the Ace realizes.

He gets up even as Rachet asks again, “Jus’ _go_.”

Kompass is storming off already. Ace manages to softly close the door, and catches up in several long strides and follows his second as he navigates the twists and turns to one of those odd locations in the Citadel with dead air and low-grade white noise, right under one of the wind generators and battery storage.

“So what’s the sitrep,” the Ace demands, trying to catch his breath. “What kinda of force we looking at, are the war parties returning sooner 'n Janey thought, how’s our weaponry?”

“What?” Kompass whips around, “There’s going to be an attack this soon? Council discussed nothing of it, expected them in ten days at the earliest.” He starts pacing.

“Isn’t that why you’ve led me here? The Boss is in danger isn’t she?”

“What made you think that?” Kompass jerks to a complete stop and looks at him strangely.

Ace stands down a notch, it might be Kompass flying off over nothing, the uncertain situation has got everyone riled especially while Furiosa’s ailing. He could see it in the tenseness of the War Pups at their door, in the eyes of the women who came in to discuss things, “So the Citadel’s still safe?”

“Yes!” Kompass passes both hands over his skull, “Well, I mean she took care of it, but—”

“It’s Corpus?” The Ace demands.

“No!” he yells, “Where are you getting this?!”

While sometimes it’s best just to let Kompass blow off steam, Ace knows that he should update his second in command on what he’d learned from Furiosa about Joe. He’s not looking forward to that conversation even a little, even less the one with Rachet; Ace is still nauseous with all the implications.

“If it’s none of that. Kompass, I need to tell you about—”

“Would you just let me say my piece!”

“This is more important! I need to tell you—”

“ _The widows say she wasn’t staging a coup_!” He roars, looming over Ace despite his stature.

Ace shoves him away, heart nitro’d, “What—”

“That Furiosa wasn’t staging a coup against Joe!” Kompass hisses, eyes wild, “That she was _running_.”

 _Does he know?!_ Ace wonders, _how could he?_

“Start from the beginning,” he orders.

* * *

Furiosa woke slowly, aware that people were moving around her but not able to drag herself to the surface in time before it had gone quiet again.

There was a warm, lean body beside her, a hand lightly petting hers, and this was familiar, this was good.

"Sprocket," she sighed, curling toward the warmth. Sprocket had been the head of the War Rig's Blackthumb crew when she’s first got the War Rig, and she'd spend a goodly amount of time crawling around the rig with him, discussing what she wanted changed, where she wanted perches, how everything could be better. Then Furiosa had spent her spare hours helping out the crew, getting things exactly how she liked, trusting only Sprocket to help her in the cab. He was small, for a War Boy, lean through the shoulders, and she never felt suffocated by him even in that small space.

When Furiosa decided she wanted more crew who could do on-the-go repairs, he was the first to come to mind, knowing Sprocket had been a scout driver before he became the repair crew’s head, and he quickly became driver of the lead car before she’d expanded his role. She's never regretted it. He's proven his worth many times over, and his trustworthiness too.

Sprocket was the first she'd welcomed touch from, wanted to touch in return. He knew how to touch without grasping, his lighter body never pinning her or making her feel trapped. She'd gradually grown accustomed to the others and they to her, to how she could stand to be touched. And from there to what she enjoyed— but Sprocket was the first, still, always welcome at her side, whether it's in bed like now or at the meal table or even, during long, boring drives, on the road beside her cab for a shouted conversation. One time he'd treated her to eleven verses of The Sand Song before she'd screamed for mercy and laughingly threatened to ram him off the road.

"It's Rachet, Boss," she heard a soft voice, and her mind jolted, re-oriented itself, cut away from the time where Sprocket would come and ease himself against her side, when she'd wake from a nightmare to find him lightly petting her hand.

She tried to choke down a sob and buried her face against Rachet's upper arm, raw and confused and feverish. Sprocket and Ace, the first of crew she’d started trusting and she now has the sensation of having lost them both. Sprocket to Valhalla, and that has never hurt as much as it does now, as if she had believed in Valhalla after all and not mourned him until now.

And Ace she'd lost to her own decisions, first to the sandstorm and now to her revelation. Furiosa didn’t know if he’d keep his respect of her, having revealed the cracks in herself like that, and revealed the many thousand-days of her lies of omission.

Despite everything, the cracks were a relief to reveal, even if she still wants to hide them; even if a part of her that was long-used to the Citadel thinks they are a weakness that will get her shredded. She had waited for some response from him, some outburst, but he’d just stared into the middle distance for a good long time, and Furiosa did not feel she could interrupt, not knowing for once where his thoughts lead.

Now she found herself running through the many possibilities of his reactions needlessly, a useless circle that could be fixed if Ace was only here to ask. If only she had the words to ask him, words that would repair this instead of breaking it further.

If only he'd give some indication that he might be willing to hear such words.

Rachet started telling her about the cloth he'd been given, his voice a little too high and tense, like when he didn't know what to do with himself. It was a good distraction from her own thoughts. He talked about how he thought he had enough to make a new shirt for her and something against chafing once she'd built a new arm… she was dimly aware that he had something on his mind, that he was tense, and probably babbling to distract himself, or perhaps both of them. But the steady stream of talking was soothing anyway, and the cadence of his voice lulled her back to sleep.

* * *

“...and then they said she was _running_ ,” Kompass yelled, “Have you heard of anything so unlike Furiosa? _Running_. And why would she run from the Immortan Joe?” He scoffed, and Ace thought he was angry all out of proportion to what he was saying.

If Joe had been like the Mechanic... except Joe had been the Citadel’s everything; he was all their strength and all their source of strength, he gave them life with the water and then gave their life meaning, he was everything worthy and determined your worth. And to think otherwise was— Ace realized that he didn't even know what that would look like, on a War Boy. He knew what that looked like on ferals that they’ve brought in from the Wasteland, those they’ve locked up to bleed or to breed.

Ace was suddenly staggered with the realization that Furiosa had been one of these ‘ferals’, and missed most of Kompass’ next words, only watching his second’s angry denials, and violent gestures, and pacing.

 _This is what the Boss saw_ , Ace realized with a sinking feeling.

This is why they hadn't been told. Was this what she'd expected, not just of the men, but of him too?

Despite his initial thoughts, the more Ace listened the more he thought that Kompass didn’t know the extent of it, but even worse: didn’t believe what little he’d heard. Didn't _want_ to believe it.

This was the man Ace had trusted to take his place on the War Rig if Ace had sped to Valhalla. A man he’d brought in after their first run, much younger and less stocky, who’d risen through the crew to become one of the most trusted, one Ace had fought beside for many thousand days, who he’d sought opinions from both in war and out of it. To whom he’d trusted safeguarding their Imperator, in all matters.

 _Have I been wrong in this too?_ Ace wondered, throat souring. He couldn’t figure out the words to tell Kompass what he’d learned earlier from Furiosa. Not in the face of this much defensiveness. He hoped Kompass just needed some time to get past his refusal to actually _listen_ and to _see_ , because the more Ace thought about it, the more he’d realized there was little things he’d always seen, but rationalized into something else because it didn’t make sense with his fundamental knowledge that Joe had saved them all.

But if Joe was fallible…

If he was not so ‘Immortan’...

“—those, those breeders, they’re _wrong_!” Kompass spat. “They don’t know what they’re talking about, spreadin’ lies about our Redeemer!”

Even so, maybe that was not enough to make people question long-held truths. Even Kompass, who as far as Ace knew had never before referred to Joe as Our Redeemer, barely had ever spoke of him come to think of it, suddenly seemed more invested in defending the Immortan than he'd ever been. 

“You see it, don’t you, Ace?” His second looked up at him, face uncertain, eyes almost pleading.

Ace thought that if he disagreed at this point, Kompass might not turn to him in the future. Maybe his ears would be closed to anything Ace might say otherwise; he’s seen it before, in different forms, when he’d had to let down an aspiring crewmember and then they’d ignored his advice on how to improve. So Ace just shook his head.

Only said, “I see.”

He looked for more words but couldn’t find any, how would he even convince the other War Boy that his perspective was muddy? That the women had a point? That every word Ace had ever said on the matter needed to be retracted, rethought? How could he even let Kompass know that Furiosa had—

What if he reacted like this to her?

Ace didn’t even know how to wrap his mind around all of what Furiosa told him, let alone put it all into words for someone else, and then to convince them of it. Clearly the widows had failed in this task, if Kompass’s reaction was any indication.

“I get it,” he said only, clapping a hand to his shoulder, and Kompass looked slightly relieved, even if his shoulders were still up around his ears like he was in the middle of a fight. As if that answer also hadn’t been what he’d wanted to hear, either.

 _Maybe this was it,_ Ace blinked, shocked, _maybe this is what it looked like_ , the moment of someone starting to doubt. But how could he even help the other War Boy expand on it? He thought about it, and kept on thinking.

That evening was quiet.

Furiosa had slept most of the day, exhausted after their conversation and her breathing worse - Ace flinched every time he heard her struggle, knowing that he'd agitated her, caused her to get up and move far more than she should have.

He was still glad they'd talked because, even though every time he looked at her it felt like she had her metal hand around his throat and was squeezing none too gently, it was better to know what he knew now. But he should have been more mindful of how his standing up, his raised voice, would make her feel she needed to be on her feet also.

She was awake for a while, wan and drained but lucid enough to rummage in the crate of small parts Rett had brought around. Apparently the widows — the _sisters_ , Ace reminded himself, had asked the the Repair Boys to collect material the Boss could use for an arm.

It gave him an odd swell of warmth for the young women, an unexpected appreciation for the way they seemed fond of Furiosa in their own way. Maybe in time he'd get used to dealing with them.

Furiosa wasn't well enough to make anything just yet, her attention span and energy levels non-existent. Mostly she was just stirring in the box idly and occasionally selecting a part to look at. She'd laid a few things aside, and now and then she nudged Rachet, who was still sitting next to her, had been all afternoon, to lend her a hand in experimentally fitting two parts together.

Kompass was stretched out on her other side, back pressed along her leg, his face grim, like he needed the contact but he was resentful about it. Or perhaps he was just trying to sleep and annoyed with Rachet, Ace wasn't sure. Kompass was often angry as a rule, but their conversation earlier certainly gave him enough reason even if their younger crewmate was working on Ace’s patience too. Rachet had been talking non-stop for the past hour at least, about whatever came to mind - Ace knew it was the younger man's way of working through a thing, letting something idle in his brain while his mouth took the driver's seat. The Boss didn't seem to mind the chatter, and occasionally hummed or nodded in acknowledgement.

Ace was trying hard to tune it out, needing some quiet to handle his own roiling mind, wishing to find words himself, but didn't want to leave the room— even in her weak, feverish state Furiosa would know something was wrong.

So now he sat on the other side of the room from them, looking back at two thousand days of being at Furiosa's back and seeing every look, every touch, every moment in a different light. He wasn't sure, just now, if he'd even known her at all. Or if he could trust himself to read her right, or anyone around her right, and then say the right thing. Not when he'd failed so bad for their entire time together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first verse of The Sand Song goes:
> 
> Sand sand sand sand  
> Sand sand sand sand  
> Sand sand sand sand  
> SAND sand sand sand sand SAAAHAAAAND sand!
> 
> The conclusion we can draw from this is that since no actual murder took place, Furiosa must have liked Sprocket a great deal.


	14. Übergrippen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Übergrippen: The intense feeling of relief when finding a jug or good handhold after a difficult Crux_
> 
> “So, if we’re heading back to the Citadel, and you’re all crew now or, something? For the Boss, I mean. Don’t look at me like that, she gave you that scarf. So if we’re heading back I really think I need to tell you something.” Austeyr gave the feral a very intense look, measuring him careful. “I don’t think she’d have time to explain all the past-like things you’d need to know,” Austeyr continued, “And this is very important. She’d want you to know, I think. Being crew, you gotta know how we go about our off-hours...”

**Shock** :

It was maybe only early morning when Austeyr couldn’t take it anymore and started talking to break up the silence.

“So, if we’re heading back to the Citadel, and you’re all crew now or, something? For the Boss, I mean. Don’t look at me like that, she gave you that scarf. So if we’re heading back I really think I need to tell you something.” He gave the feral a very intense look, measuring him careful.

“Mmnngh?” An uncertain sound floated over to him, but the man’s eyes remained fixed on the horizon, jaw tight, shoulders stiff.

“I don’t think she’d have time to explain all the past-like things you’d need to know,” Austeyr continued, “And this is very important. She’d want you to know, I think.”

That finally caught Max’s attention and he half-turned his face towards him, keeping an eye on where they were going which was good because Austeyr himself is not even trying anymore. He gave a firm nod to himself, because he’s pretty much completely sure this is how they decide if to trust a new guy; Austeyr was not the newest of crew but he’s not in a leadership position and may never be at the rate his tumors are going, but his observations are pretty consistent. He can always guess which War Boys end up being crew and which become forgotten by the way they react to a very simple thing. And Austeyr liked this feral, even if he seems war-shocked and Wasteland-odd, and wanted to help the guy out. Integrate him into being crew faster, trusted sooner.

‘Cause who knew what strange habits he’d picked up out there in the desert; might come into the thing with odd notions, weird all the others out, might even embarrass the Boss, and he can’t have that.

So Austeyr started asking careful and slow:

“Being crew, you gotta know how we go about our off-hours. I mean it’s entertain too, don’t get me wrong; an’ shiny entertain with the way the Boss watches us.” He faltered slightly at the feral’s sudden attention, as Max seemed to expand somehow, become threatening and bulky and Austeyr suddenly felt intimidated despite his height advantage and despite the bike in-between them and despite the accord they’ve reached earlier. He fanged it despite his nervousness, “How much do you know about—” He can’t help but glance around him. It wasn’t a thing that much made sense outside the Citadel.

Perhaps it didn’t even make sense _within_ the Citadel, the other crews certainly looked at them strange for it. Wasn't like a lot of them weren't doing it too, just not so much as a crew bonding activity and with their Imperator involved.

“About?”

Austeyr gulped and stared over at the horizon determinedly, and said, “About lizard racing.”

The feral seemed to trip over nothing.

_Huh._

Strange guy.

* * *

**Denial** :

“ _Lizard racing.”_

Austeyr nodded like it was the most important thing he must know. Max squinted and couldn't tell if the War Boy was nodding a little extra hard in sarcasm or if that’s just how the other man was.

“Lizard… racing?”

“Do you even know how to pick a good lizard?” Austeyr questioned him intently, “How to look at their thighs and test for spoingyness? Their forearm musculature and fast twitch muscles? Finger dexterity?”

Max… is not quite sure if he’s speaking in euphemism… and if he is, then what to think of War Boys sex lives. He’s half a second from rolling his eyes like he did at that Toast girl. He tested cautiously, “Hhmmm, like the lizards with two heads?”

He'd met a guy like that back on… he wasn't sure. He'd met a guy once who had bragged about his two functional heads. Three if you counted his actual head. Maybe there were Warboys like that.

“No!” the War Boy reared back, “Those are the worst! The second head get distracted so easy! You want a single head. And when you pick them up they should circle their arms like this.”

And then he demonstrated while Max tried not to let the bike fall over with Austeyr suddenly letting go of the handle. Max squinted.

(In another lifetime, another world, Max may have described the War Boy’s gestures as “Wax On, Wax Off”, with fingers spread like Jazz Hands, hips swinging side to side in a counter-balanced shimmy.

In that world, there’d be burgers and enough gas for endless trips and maybe no need to be prepared to kill most people he meets— But in that world, Austeyr would still probably be racing lizards.

Or dancing.)

“With that sort of body torque I just demo’d? Racers are more effective that way, not the ones that claw straight forward,” and then he demonstrated this motion too. (Max’s eyebrows have long since bumped up against the furrows on his forehead and neither could agree to what’s happening.) “And you want ones with big fingertips!” Austeyr thrust his thumb in Max’s face and then bobbed it like he was nodding with his thumb alone. “For better grip.”

“And this is… important.” Max hazarded.

“YES.” The War Boy subsides a little, thoughtful, “The best racers aren’t necessarily even the tastiest though; they’re kinda bony and hard? I mean you _think_ they’ll be all shine but then you put it in your mouth and you’re just kinda disappointed.”

Max twitched and waited for Austeyr to point at him and laugh at the joke.

It never came.

* * *

**Anger** :

“See, it’s a thing crew does, when we’re in-between runs. ‘S how you can tell if you’re good with the crew, good with the Boss, if you get invited, then reinvited to these things.” Austeyr nods as if to himself, “Sometimes you get poor losers and, well, they don’t last long. Premature, you might say. Boss decides if there's an equal finish, based on determination of the lizards raced and sometimes on style.”

Max feels his face screw up even more small and pinched.

"Furiosa... races lizards?" That.. doesn't sound like her. Not like the Furiosa in this world, who wouldn’t have the time to play with her food.

"Of course not," Aus snorts. Max nods a little relieved, because, well, of course she doesn't. "She cheers and referees."

He feels very glad he isn’t eating or drinking anything.

“Well, the official contests. Sometimes we have prelims, give them obstacles to give her only the best show, you know? Make sure the lizards are shimmying all proper and oiled up nice.”

 _No,_ Max doesn’t know. About anything whatsoever. He’s still unsure this isn't a strange sex metaphor. He feels like he doesn't know anything at all, right now, about anything or anyone. Least of all a Furiosa who watches lizard contests; he’s not sure if it would make more sense for her to cheer on dancing, oiled up War Boys (and that's just the best case interpretation..) or to cheer on escaping oiled up food. (Why would you oil up a _lizard_?) And if it was dancing... does… does Austeyr expect him to dance as well? Is that what this is about? He knows he has no rhythm. But when he shakes his head, Austeyr seems to take that as encouragement to go on.

“Mmm, sometimes she catches us at it when we race them across the top of the War Rig. Peeves her off like nothing else, lizard prints on the windshield, y’know. But it's extra fun on the hot rig, some of 'em slow right down but the best ones get faster.”

Max hopes this is actually about lizards, he really does.

“I mean sometimes we try it when moving?” the lancer’s voice went thoughtful, “She got real mad though when she caught us. Stomped her brakes real hard one time when she caught sight in the rearview when we were riding a calm stretch and all our lizards went _flying_.”

He gave the longest sigh, “Was a good batch of racers too, and then she had us clean off all the sun-baked lizard guts and repaint the entire Rig when we got back. _While_ the Repair Boys watched.”

(...Max _really_ hopes it’s not a metaphor.)

* * *

**Bargaining** :

“Would I… um.” The Wastelander looked around, here and there, “Need to, hmm.. race my own?”

Austeyr blinked, “You could? Most get ours from the cages behind the mess. That’s why picking is so important.” But he has to grimace, “Sometimes nearly the whole batch is a loss. This one time a War Boy got it in his head to free climb up the side of the mess hall and then try to catch the Boss’ eye.”

“Ehh?” Max hummed, and Austeyr’s pretty sure he’s got the hang of this now, that one meant, ‘ _why would a shithead do a thing like that?’_

“I know right? I mean Furiosa’s crew’s the best of the best and everyone’s always trying to get her attention but why you go interrupting a meal or an honest race? Even worse?” Austeyr paused to make sure the man was listening and he’s sure the Wastelander must be riveted because this was _food_ they were talking about here, “Even worse, the guy’s grip slipped and he fell right into the pens!”

Max made a pained sound, “That a metaphor?”

“Yeah, no. Legit! Smushed meat, all over the guy, lizards tasted like paint for the next little while, I tell you. If I’d wanted a mouthful of paint there’s more fun ways to do it.”

There was an ‘ahah!’ expression on Max’s face and his confusion seemed to only grow more concerned. And then he rolled his eyes. Austeyr hazarded that one meant, ‘ _so the pens are sometimes unreliable because of shitheads but why waste food when it’s just an honest bit of paint?_ ’

"...and I'm.. mm, expected to join in with these… 'races'?"

“It would be polite to join in somehow if you were asked, don’tcha think? Good for crew bonding." Austeyr nodded. “Maybe just sit by the Imperator first and spectate? Careful though, she gets intense. Quite loud when it gets excitin'.”

* * *

**Guilt** :

“I think. Um. It’s been quite awhile since,” Max squirmed, “I’ve… done anything but eat a— lizard? Um. Never raced?”

"That's okay, we'll help ya prepare," Austeyr just beamed at him, “War Boys are always willing to lend a hand.”

“I think I’ll be fine going it alone.”

“Sure?”

"I'm...sure.."

* * *

**Depression** :

Max does not think he wants to fit himself into tight black pants but it’s increasingly looking like a possibility.

Maybe he should just… bring Austeyr to the Citadel and leave right away. Stay well out of this 'lizard' business.

* * *

**Acceptance** :

“YOU THOUGHT I WAS TALKIN' ABOUT TRADIN' PAINT?”

“Mmngh.”

"I mean we do that too, but not like a RACE."

“...?!”

"I mean she would actually murder us if we did THAT on the War Rig. And V8, what did you THINK I was talking about when I mentioned lizard guts? No—" he held up a hand, "don't tell me. Better not knowing."

Man, this Wastelander was _filthy_. He'd known the Wasteland did things to a man, but urgh… _Ferals_.


	15. Thrutching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Thrutching: Poor technique or 'body climbing', often making a move more difficult than it need be. Also: A grunting, heaving action synonymous with climbing._
> 
> The lift to the heights of the Citadel was lowering in the darkening twilight, three figures stood on it, but as it lowered, the feral tensed beside him. Austeyr tried to look himself and he could only see that the Gatekeepers were missing; there were three people on the lift, one tall, and the others middling height. At first glance he’d assumed the tall one might be the Boss but the posture was all wrong and was much too thin.
> 
> And that’s when Austeyr became a little concerned as well.
> 
> “Schlanger,” the tall one with the bone-white hair declared sharply, “you’re _late_.”

They came up on the Citadel as twilight was settling, the stone towers rising up in front of them as three tall sentries, cowled by shadows, eyes hidden. Austeyr thought he’d got a handle on the wasteland feral during their walk back; the different grunts and sounds that meant _yes_ and _no_ and the variations of _maybe_ , _I don’t think so_ , _I’m not sure,_ and _please stop talking about lizards_. It took him longer to figure out than Austeyr did most, even considering how he’d had to hone that skill due to his circumstances, longer than even the Boss to be honest, given that they’d spent the entirety of a day in each other’s presence and only just now did he feel like he’s really getting the hang of it.

“ _The sun’s hot, isn’t it?”_

“ _Mmph.”_

“ _Why wear a jacket right now? Not taking it off?”_

“ _Nn.”_

“ _That’s a ‘no’, right? I’m pretty sure that’s a ‘no, why are you even asking me, Austeyr, you could be walking right now, silently’.”_

_A long sigh._

Even with him doing his best to pull out a response, at most the man ( _Max,_ he reminded himself), responded with just a series of short chopped phrases. Mostly on what he might expect once they arrive, and that only as they crested the ridge that let them see the towers on the horizon.

“Furiosa left with the wives,” Max said, interrupting Austeyr’s musing on how the crew might react to their arrival. “Most what I saw… mmm.”

Austeyr was fairly sure that was hesitation, so he asked, “eeh?”

“The first fight, with the spikey cars…”

“The Buzzards we call ‘em”

“Yeah,” Max let out a sigh, and hummed, “you saw it all?”

“Ah,” Austeyr coughed, and hummed a little, himself. His cheeks burned and he felt glad for his paint, what there was left of it. “Enough to know we smashed them up good.”

“Mm.” The feral eyed him, looking cornered. Then looked away and shook his head hard. “There was a sandstorm after. Furiosa drove the War Rig through it.”

Austeyr had seen the storm, knew the way light cuts up the air and the way winds move unnatural and the way compass metal goes every which way, lost. They were always told to turn back from storms, to take cover until they died down or that you will die in it.

“A small storm?” Austeyr couldn’t help asking. Maybe it hadn't been as bad as it looked.

Max shook his head no.

“So the crew…”

The man didn’t meet his eyes, staring determinedly at their goal, “When I met up with your Imperator… was just her and the girls.”

Austeyr stared blankly into midair as he tried to process it. They’ve incurred losses during runs of course, but a whole sweep of a crew like that was unheard of. Since Austeyr joined they’d lost at most maybe four crewmates during a particularly vexacious run.

"They died defending the rig." He thought about how much the Boss hated losing crew. She had to be devastated, but she would have Witnessed them. They would have gone to Valhalla, he knew it.

Max grunted an ambivalent sound, and Austeyr whipped his face over to check his expression. He couldn’t read it.

“Furiosa killed the Immortan Joe, means she took his place.” Austeyr tested, and received a different ambivalent sound, one that meant the wastelander thought so too, but wasn’t sure. “Then—”

“The girls,” Max interrupted, "I just… brought 'em back." He shifted uncomfortably, “Think they’re okay. Smart, adaptable.”

"The wives?" Austeyr got the feeling that he was being looked at very carefully for his reaction but he had no idea for what.

“Mm.”

"They must hate the Boss for killing Joe."

“They… helped her.” Max said slowly.

"Huh."

Crews couldn't pick who'd be in charge of them. You just had to hope for an Imperator that knew what he was doing and didn't ride you too harshly. But sometimes… Sometimes there'd be an Imperator in charge who'd be particularly - who wouldn't be very good for his crew. And sometimes, eventually, when he didn't come back from a run, the rumours would be that was that his Ace had stumbled or his flank crew hadn't managed to shield the Imperator from the crossbow bolts, and that was that. 

That was… things like that weren't unheard of with the Warboys. Loyalty was earned. But surely there could be no better than the Immortan? The Immortan had earned all of their loyalty a long time ago. Why would the Wives have decided they no longer wanted to be His?

And how would they have helped the Boss? Austeyr had never heard of any fight going like that, if they helped (but _how?_ He'd seen Joe's wives from a distance during certain speech days when Their Redeemer blessed them with his thoughts; they were fragile things dressed all in white, not meant for war.) maybe the wives decided they wanted to be the Boss' wives instead?

Not that he could blame them, Boss was shiny. Other Warboys tried to get on her crew all the time.

“Y’gonna have a problem with that?”

He looked over at Max with a confused look and reorientated himself onto the question. It was simple, to his mind, “Boss beat him fair and square, right? She took the final blow?”

Max nodded.

"Not my business if the Boss wants to take his wives," Aus said after some consideration. She'd got all his other stuff, after all. And it made sense that the Boss would need breeders, seein' as she couldn't make any heirs herself. He wasn't sure how that worked - maybe she'd take a healthy full-life man as wife, so he could breed them for her? He glanced to the side at Max, then dismissed the idea. She'd never accept a feral like that. The man could barely speak and startled at nothing. He'd make tiny, twitchy pups.

He supposed it would mean the Boss would spend her nights with her wives in the vault. Which is an uncomfortable thought; Austeyr would miss the times after runs, the way crew would all curl up together. He'd always liked that.

_Oh but—_

The knowledge that he wouldn’t be able to rest against crew _anyway_ suddenly punched home into him. They'd all gone to Valhalla without him. He felt briefly suffocated at their absence, like air being whisked away on a hard fall, not knowing if or when he’d hit ground. He’d— he’d felt like he had a place on the crew, a sense that the crew understood something that had been hard to find in the Citadel. Or that the something that’d existed in bits and pieces but never. Never solid enough to lean against, to trust.

Austeyr couldn’t dwell on that however, might not make a difference once he properly delivered the bike to the Boss and she sent him off too, and he shook his head to get his mind back to the question. “Still can’t believe she took out the Immortan like that though. Nothing’s ever even _injured_ him for tens of thousands of days.” The War Boys would’ve known if he had, they all saw him from the speech platform before runs and during speech days, but the Immortan had always looked as he’d ever done, ageless and pristine, strong and chrome and white. “Ey, how she end up doing it?”

“Hmm,” the feral’s face looked off, tilting his head, “she’d took a harpoon with her, climbed up his car to, mmm, near his tubes?” He made a hooking motion around his face and then yanked his hands away.

The Warboy’s eyes grew wide, _well that was certainly a chrome way to shred someone_. Austeyr couldn't help but respect that, even if the thought of their Redeemer dying kept shaking him up at odd moments. It’d been a reality of life that Warboys would live and die and the Immortan Joe would last on; and because he lived so, too, lived all the Warboys that died for him, in Vahalla.

 _What now,_ he couldn't help but think.

Max grunted as if in response and the grunt said, _look over there_.

The lift to the heights of the Citadel was lowering in the darkening twilight, three figures stood on it, but as it lowered, the feral tensed beside him. Austeyr tried to look himself and he could only see that the Gatekeepers were missing; there were three people on the lift, one tall, and the others middling height. At first glance he’d assumed the tall one might be the Boss but the posture was all wrong and was much too thin.

And that’s when Austeyr became a little concerned as well.

“Schlanger,” the tall one with the bone-white hair declared sharply, “you’re _late_.”

It was the same time that the feral practically growled, “Furiosa?” and one of the other forms resolved into an old-looking full-life. She had a rifle at the ready.

“Still in bed,” she replied.

“ _Still_?”

“Still,” the old one looked at the way the wastelander gone all alarmed, shoulders thrown back as if seeking a wall. “Well, y’coming then?” and the women made a small space for them on the lift, eyeing Austeyr suspiciously.

“Who’s this?”

“Mmm,” and his eyes were distant, looking at the night-darkened tips of the Citadel as if seeking the Boss’ room by sight, “found one of her crew out there.”

The sharp one clicked her tongue and peered at him, and Austeyr tried not to feel like he’d been given a shave by an unsteady hand, “Those keep popping up. Three more of them hovering round Furiosa, fussin' over her.”

Austeyr straightened up at that, if all of the old crew were lost then it must be— “More Warboys currying favor? While she's _bedridden_ ? Are you watching them careful?” Their crew was legend and there were many who tried to get their Boss’ attention by means fair or foul. Their Ace and other leadership usually ran interference because, “there’s many that aren’t worth being crew for her.” _Especially_ if she’s bedridden.

“ ‘Watching them careful’?” The bone-white one asked, sharp, too.

He nodded warily, even as they seemed to relax around him.

“Y’done that for her a lot, sounds like,” the old one said, settling back on her heels. "Not to worry, she recognized and welcomed them by her side herself. Found them reliable."

He nodded, then shrugged, awkward, wincing in pain, “Mostly Ace that done that, not me.” He was rocked back briefly at the thought that there might not be anybody to do that for her now, except maybe the women Max had spoken of. But would they even know how? He stared over at the bike absently, tracing the handle he’d kept a grip on.

“Actually the Ace is there,” she said, “and two others of your old crew.”

Austeyr heard the handle creak as he suddenly gripped it tight and whipped his eyes over to see her face.

She wasn’t lying.

His throat was tight.

“How?” Max asked what they were both thinking.

“Don’t rightly know. But word is, they stumbled in after the storm and were holed up here since; when we all came up to the Citadel they were mostly here healing."

“I bought the bike back for the crew,” Austeyr said quickly, “that should help right?”

The women stared at him as if he’d made a change of topic, but it wasn’t a change of topic because that was the whole reason why he’d been _trying._ It was his way into—

“Don’t need it,” Max gave him an uncertain pat on the good shoulder, “not for an invite.”

It was Austeyr’s turn to stare in confusion, but Max was already rolling the bike onto the lift and Aus could only follow.

“You’re welcome here,” the last woman finally spoke up, she was a Wretched so Austeyr hadn’t been paying attention, but he noticed her now.

 _What would_ she _know?_ the Warboy couldn’t help but think. The Wretched had never been allowed up to the heights, but she seemed so sure of her words.

She seemed to read his face and then nod to herself.

She didn’t say much else during the ride to the garages, desert-dark skin and desert-dark clothes seeming almost to blend into the chains she was hovering by. When they arrived she’d disappeared down one of the Citadel’s shadowed hallways, and by then Austeyr was too much caught up and tense over the feral’s own sudden tenseness.

***

As they pushed the bike off the lift platform and toward the garages, Dag was explaining something about the state of the water supply. Her voice went hollow until it was no more than distant noise, and Max's shirt was suddenly soaked with cold sweat. A murmur of voices rose with it.

The space was large and open, but mostly dark. At the edge of his vision a flickering torch lit ghostly pale faces. The back of his neck ached, and he shrugged deeper into his leather jacket, jarring the bike. He wasn't sure he could still feel his toes.

He heard his name, and when he looked there was a skeleton face grinning at him over the bike. He jolted backward, hands protectively in front of him. He saw in slow motion as the bike began to tip, as the Vuvalini, Janey, got her hands on it just in time to stop it from crashing to the ground.

His back hit the wall, and he heard a strangled sound coming from his mouth that startled him.

"Max!" the skeleton face came at him, and Max wasn't sure if he was real or not but he already had a knife in his hand—

" _Warboy!_ " said a commanding voice, cutting through Max's haze, and the skeleton stopped, turned away. What only seemed like seconds later, he was gone, and the echoing voices had disappeared...

He could hear his own breathing in the sudden silence

"Fool?" he heard a soft voice, and he turned to find— not Furiosa, but the driver, Janey. She held out a water skin, and he accepted it on instinct. Nobody offered water in the Wastes, it wasn't something he could imagine, so it had to be real.

"You with me?" she asked when he'd drank. He'd been tempted to empty the waterskin, but he'd vaguely remembered that if somebody shared their water with you, you should leave some for them. Strange how such a courtesy from another time was coming to him now.

She was leaning against the wall a few paces away, not trying to force eye contact. He was vaguely, distantly grateful.

He grunted.

"If this is—" she made a vague gesture. "I can bring you up to the gardens. Not a lotta walls at your back, but nothing closin' in on you, either."

Max curled his toes inside his boots, trying to feel his feet connecting to the ground, and forced his breathing down. He should never have come here, should have left Aus in sight of the lift and got the hell away. The Warboy would have managed pushing the bike the last little bit. Would have been fine amidst the masses of the Wretched. Probably. Max would have managed to get away again, somehow. On the last swallows of his water and with no car or bike.

He would have been able to keep hold of his last image of Furiosa, standing tall and proud on the lift as it rose, the girls surrounding her. Nodding at him with an expression that said 'Thank you' and 'I can handle it from here' and 'You are not needed' and he wouldn't have had to know that now she was bed-bound, feverish and weak. Flashes of phantom scent hit his nose, antiseptic and death, and his stomach tried to shoulder past his heart on its way up.

"I, um," he swallows convulsively. "Furiosa," he finally manages. "Need to— need to see her."

"We can do that."

***

Ace woke when the door opened, and reflexively shielded the Boss with his body, having moved over to the mattress as he’d gotten tired. He half-suspected that falling asleep on hard rock would only get him another scolding from that elder from Furiosa’s green place. It was only Janey who appeared though, backlit by the oil lamp in the hallway. Furiosa made a disgruntled sound and shoved weakly at his arm, and he immediately backed away, making space between them again. It had been two days, which was long enough for her to get irritated about coddling, at least in her lucid moments. Kompass and Rachet were shifting awake too, only half-alarmed as there was no immediate attack.

“—do better here than in the sickbay,” Janey was saying, holding up a lamp, and then stepped aside to admit—

“Aus,” Ace rasped. He hadn’t expected any survivors from that part of the fight; it had looked like Austeyr and his driver had got caught in an explosion. The lancer didn’t look any better than any of them, dark raw skin under old paint mostly rubbed away, mottled bruises along his sides and a particular rainbow of healing and half healing skin over his left shoulder.

Furiosa’s eyes fixed on the newcomer, and she mouthed his name, smiling a little. The tense, wary look on Austeyr’s face eased when he saw that she was pleased to see him.

“Boss.” He sounded surprised, and tentative, like it was far more than he'd expected.

Austeyr hesitantly sank down on the edge of the mattress near Ace’s knees, and that left the other man standing awkwardly. A Wasteland man, dusty and hard and tense, but Janey seemed to know him, Ace thought.

The man’s eyes flicked from Furiosa, whose eyes had drifted shut again, to Ace, then to Rachet and Kompass who were both staring curiously, then back to Furiosa and Austeyr, then to Janey, then to Furiosa again. Finally he moved, slowly as if not wanting to startle anybody, toward the head end of the mattress. Four pairs of eyes followed him as the crew tracked his movements.

“Hey…”

He sank into a crouch slowly, as much from pain as from caution, judging by his leg brace.

“Heeey… Furiosa…”

Ace watched him warily, this twitchy Wasteland man with the nervous eyes. He would have warned him away if the man hadn’t sounded so _worried_ , like he knew the Boss, like he wasn’t sure if she was safe with her crew. Like he was prepared, despite his disadvantage, to get her out of that room if needed, and despite how it raised Ace’s hackles, he knew he would’ve done the same.

The man reached out a grimy hand and lightly cupped it over the Boss’s head. Her eyes drifted open, and the man leaned into her line of vision.

“Hey,” he said again, low and gentle.

“...fool...” she whispered, barely any breath behind it. It was enough to make the man give the hint of a smile. “..stay.. get some.. rest...”

Ace’s mind quietly clicked the facts into place; this was him, that one that Furiosa said who’d understood her. Then his eyes grew wide, _this_ was the one she’d trusted? Some half-wild _feral_?

The man looked startled, but Ace could tell he'd understood the command as clearly as they all had - _be here when I wake up_. He glanced around at the Warboys, then to Janey, who shrugged. He hesitated for long enough that Ace had to blink and force his eyes to stay open. Finally the man grunted, and after a light brush over her cheek with the back of his fingers, got to his feet.

Ace watched him settle uneasily on the ledge by the window, and wondered how, in the insane three-day escape and return expedition, the boss had found time to adopt a Wasteland stray. Because however she had done it, it was clear to Ace that the man was as bound to the Boss as each of them were. He didn’t think he had to fear for her safety from this Wastelander,even if Ace wanted him as far from the Boss as he could get.

He settled himself pointedly in between Furiosa and the window and stared at that feral until sleep took him.

* * *

Max settled in on the ledge furthest away from the mattress, knife in his hand, and tried to understand. When Janey had mentioned, low and soothing, that Furiosa’s crew slept ‘close by’ this wasn’t what he’d expected.But he wasn’t much thinking at the time she’d said it, except to just get to where they were going without going back into his head.

She had an actual mattress, filled with - judging by the scent - sorghum straw and a soft top layer of hair. It was on the floor, and she was sharing it with the guy Janey had referred to as Ace, and two others, sharing like she had apparently done for the past two days of enforced bedrest. They occupied space like they were used to it, bodies turned a little toward each other, even if the one called Ace was a little separated from her.

That wasn’t even the weirdest part.

That would be seeing Austeyr whack foreheads with the sleepy sullen looking Warboy on her other side, who’d woken up further at the action, but instead of looking more upset at being bashed in the head actually seemed _less_ , and reached a broad hand around to Aus’ neck to draw him into their midst. The action ticked some memory in Max as he watched the action repeated with the other Warboy, who’d yawned in Austeyr’s face and patted his brand fondly. Then poked him in his bad shoulder and laughed as he was shoved back.

Max watched as they all settled back down to Furiosa’s own mattress, the Warboy he’d brought back to them spooning up easily against Furiosa’s back as if he’d done it many times before. Max tensed, as did the two others, but she only snugged into him and sleepily reached in front of her as if to find another body and pull it closer. Her hand landed on the older Warboy’s shoulder and he seemed to sigh and then back up a little until his bulk closed her in.

The other two exchanged a glance and then piled in around Austeyr and Furiosa, bodies intersecting and pressed against each others in loose-limbed comfort.

And it was in this way that they unwound and drift into sleep.

Max stayed awake with the night and the desert and the moon as it crept across the sky.

As he watched, one of the crew grew restless, shifting and mumbling, the new shadows making it hard to see who. Furiosa sighed in her sleep and shifted turning, resting her nub against his head. The guy nuzzled his forehead against it and calmed.

He remembered that she’d said something about warboys being different when you were on their side, but he could never have guessed she meant _this_ , this… this protective affection.

And just as strange as seeing warboys curled up together, was seeing how comfortably Furiosa fit between them. This was the same woman who hadn't touched anybody, not once, until Valkyrie held her. Even the girls— other women, who were tactile with each other, had respected Furiosa's barriers. And only when she'd been very close to dying had her defenses been lowered enough for her to lean into his shoulder in the back of the Gigahorse.

He'd thought she was one of those people who just didn't like being touched, but judging by the way she wasn't just comfortable in this tangled heap of Warboys, but actually reaching out to them, he'd been entirely wrong about that.

Max turned the idea of it around in his head until one moment he’d been looking at the wastes and the next—

* * *

_he smells blood and a lack of air and hands covering his face and those hands smell like fire and death and paint, they smell like responsibility, failed, they smell like_

_there is hurt trailing in a ride behind him and there is hurt in a car catching up to him and the hurt laughs in his face and calls him bloodbag and he is too late and there are walls rising up around him until they fall away but the night bumps with monsters and he bumps back, even though it’s useless, even though it’s not enough, even though he feels like filth, paint is being applied onto bruised skin and those hands shake, and his hands are painted too, his hands_

_are red_

* * *

—he woke up with a gasp.

Breathed for long minutes.

Max hadn’t expected to sleep well in a room with four strangers in it, let alone _these_ sort of strangers, and he didn’t. At least he hadn’t woken them all up with his nightmares, so that was something. He didn’t like to think what sort of explosive chain reaction that would have gotten from a room full of sleeping warboys.

The room had an opening to the outside, which meant that the desert cold of just before dawn had snuck in. The way everybody was curled together made a lot more sense - Max was chilled to the bone. He reached down to snag the blanket somebody had kicked off.

He looked up when he saw movement. Furiosa was tucked in between the Ace and the warboy Max had returned to her yesterday. One of the others was at an angle to them, his face pressed against the back of Furiosa’s knees. Well, at least she looked warm.

Apparently she was awake, though she hadn’t opened her eyes - she had her arm over her head and was gingerly trying to get to the water bottle that was standing there.

Max rose and went to the head-end of the mattress, crouching down.

“Furiosa.”

“Fool,” she whispered, dry and raspy. The corners of her mouth ticked up a little.

He put the water bottle in her hand, but seeing the difficulty she had in bringing it up and to her face, he took it from her. Slipping a hand underneath her head, he helped her raise it enough to drink a little.

“Was real,” she whispered when she was done. “You brought me Aus....”

“Mm.”

“Thought I… the fever…” she trailed off, head growing heavier in his hand as she went slack.

Max fought the urge to try to rouse her, the memory of her fading under his hands still so fresh, she was so injured, she could still—

But she was breathing steadily, if not deep. It sounded a little raspy, but not anything like the death rattle he remembered from a few days ago.

“Boss?” a low voice rumbled, and Max found himself being examined by the Ace, who was apparently just waking. The man slowly coiled his arm under him, ready to push up— Max was so worried about Furiosa that it took him a moment to realise the crew leader wasn’t certain that Max wasn’t a danger.

Max gently extracted his hand from under Furiosa’s head and shuffled back a few feet, until his spine hit the rough-hewn wall. He kept his hands where Ace could see them, eyeing the other man warily. He didn’t look like he was in a much better state than any of them were - his cheek was swollen, his ribs were bound and a lot of his skin looked raw and reddened.

“Shh,” Furiosa mumbled drowsily. “Fool’s okay..”

“Gave her my blood,” Max said softly to Ace, not wanting to wake anybody else. “Think I’d do that and harm her now?”

"Think you'd be the first to use helping as an excuse to harm?" There was something hard and angry in the Warboy’s eyes that Max couldn't even guess at, but the implication that Furiosa was harmed by someone claiming to help made him push off the wall.

“So...you’re saying someone got past you.” Max challenged, voice a low distant storm.

The older man’s face twisted, and forced out from the half-snarl of his face the words, “Past _us_ ? You’ve known her for all of three days and she comes back to us like _this_.”

“ _Hush_ ,” Furiosa interrupted, steely despite her quiet and the sleep in her voice. And Ace flinched back as if stung. She continued with a little difficulty, “Not… anyone’s... fault.”

Max wondered if she meant his accusation at Ace or the warboy’s returning shot, or at them both. He returned to his perch by the window anyway, because he didn’t want her to continue stressing out her lungs.

Ace seemed to agree, and drifted warily back down to the mattress.

The room was silent. Furiosa’s breathing drifted towards sleep and it should be peaceful, but Max met Ace’s eyes and this time neither of them stood down.

There was a knock on the door and it swung open impatiently after that, Toast walked in and took them all in at a glance. She narrowed her eyes at the pile of Warboys around Furiosa and looked sideways at Max as if to ask, _Can you believe this?_

Max just tilted his head and raised his eyebrow.

“We need your opinion on something,” Toast said after staring at him flatly, mouth pinched, “maybe get you out there again if you’re up for it.”

“Out…?”

“We need a scout.” She glanced at tangled sleepers on the mattress again, as if she didn’t even want to look at them fully, and seemed to shiver. Then she pivoted on her foot, walking quickly from the room.

Max followed, feeling Ace's eyes on his back.


	16. Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Friend: A 'friend' or spring-loaded camming device is a piece of rock climbing equipment. An anchoring device that stops you from plummeting to your death by using the force of your fall to generate massive amounts of friction._
> 
> Max was discovering that somehow, he had imagined that after he gave her his blood and she stood upright on the lift as it rose, she'd stay upright. Perhaps it was a combination of wishful thinking and appreciation for the sheer power of will that had kept her upright and fighting through their entire time together.
> 
> Perhaps he'd somehow considered her more than human. It’s not like he’d ever seen her sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a miscarriage flashback. Not particularly graphic.

Max was discovering that somehow, he had imagined that after he gave her his blood and she stood upright on the lift as it rose, she'd stay upright. Perhaps it was a combination of wishful thinking and appreciation for the sheer power of will that had kept her upright and fighting through their entire time together.

Perhaps he'd somehow considered her more than human. It’s not like he’d ever seen her sleep.

Fact was that she was very badly injured, and finding her like he did, feverish and wheezing and small, unsettled him badly.

It was hard to listen to her feeble, rattling breaths, but it was even harder to be away where he couldn't hear them at all, where his mind could tell him it'd stopped.

“—ax, _Max_!”

He backed up and hit the wall. Red.

Blinked, and the red was hair not blood.

Blinked, and the red was— was that girl, Capable?

Capable.

Ah. He had left the room following Toast, her having a twitchy sort of angry he knew the feeling of, but as they walked further from the room calm settled over her while it left him. He’s not sure which way they turned, he knew it was upwards but not beyond that, the warren of tunnels in the Citadel confusing his direction-sense.

“Max, did you get all that.”

Max twitched, vision doubling with the living and the dead and, in the corner of his eye, Furiosa; and he can’t tell which she is supposed to belong to.

“Ah,” he scrounged his memory, “You’ve been handling things here, while Furiosa has been…” he gestured. “Got the food and water, got the Warpups on your side, got mmm, maybe some Warboys?”

He looked at them and they seemed to exchange a loaded glance but Capable stepped forward and nodded firmly, “Give us a few more days, I think I understand them.” Toast and Cheedo exchanged a glance behind her, wary, and they turned to look at Max over her shoulder.

He nodded back, head furrowing, “Trouble?”

One of the Vuvalini stepped forward, the one that’d been driving most of the way while they scrambled to keep Furiosa living. “Corpus and the Gatekeepers. Nothing that we can’t sort out. Some numbers-work but—”

And Max’s forehead furrowed deeper and Janey laughed.

“—we don’t need you for that. What we’re concerned about are those War parties,” Janey finished.

His hackles rose.

Toast looked at him and nodded. “I mentioned needing a scout, on our way out the room,” she said, eyeing him, measuring, “You found the Warboy not far away?”

Max hummed and looked apologetic, “Day’s walk.”

“Hmph, we need to know about the situation at the canyon. Didn’t think to grab a ride?”

 _From where?_ He tilted his head at her and felt his confusion grow.

The Vuvalini shook her head and stood up.

“We’ve got a sand buggy fixed up, a climber with deep treads, and a trailer for any likely-looking salvage. You’ll have a list of the things we’re most short on. Rest up today and ride tomorrow; see what you can find where the Rig blew, how many it took out, and maybe, if you’re lucky, how many Warboys and vehicles might be heading towards us. ”

These were clear tasks and Max found that he liked the focus it gave him. It carried him enough through the rest of the conversation and then all the way back to Furiosa's quarters, telling himself she would still be breathing until he could hear for himself, led there by the phantom sound of her breathing.

Her quarters which were full of War Boys.

Not as full, this mid-morning. The leader was apparently on bed rest same as Furiosa, and Austeyr was there chatting to them.

“Ehh?” Max looked around but there wasn’t much place to hide the other two.

Austeyr looked at him, “Oh, the Boss sent them off for the day’s observances, they should be back in the evening.”

Max shrugged and settled on the ledge by the window, noting with something of amusement that the younger man simply continued where he’d left off, telling Max's story for him, apparently turning the three sentence explanation Max had given Janey into a real epos.

"...and then he helped me get back here. Did or said something to the breeders on the lift and they let me up without needing a word from me."

Furiosa had apparently fallen asleep somewhere halfway into this tale, but the lancer wasn’t even looking at her. He was facing Ace and the old Warboy was looking at Max consideringly.

"And they brought me here just on his word."

" _Did_ they now?" Ace stared at Max and Max met his gaze, couldn’t do anything _but_ this, because it felt like a challenge.

The man nodded his head toward the door, and Max shrugged, getting up and waiting for Ace to lead him where he wanted to talk.

 

They left the room and walked deeper into the Citadel, the growing shadows making Max twitch in memory. This section of the Citadel, the Imperator's living quarters, was nicer than the section near the Organic Mechanic's space, but the air grates and crudely hacked corners and corridors still made him twitchy. He tried to keep track of where Furiosa's quarters were - he knew they hadn't gone far, but it was out of sight now and that made him restless.

"Why'd you bring him here?" Ace asked, stopping and leaning against the wall in an alcove.

Max shifted uneasily, getting ready to move, trying to keep his back to a wall without cutting off his own escape route.

"He's hers," Max grunted, reminding himself that he'd seen her not minutes ago, that she'd been breathing. _Still breathing._ "Figured she'd want him back."

"Any others?"

"No. Not…" _not alive_.

"So what're you to her?" Ace rasped, questions shot like bullets.

Max looked at him, (remembers: still _breathing_ ) and wondered how the hell to answer something he had no answer to himself.

"You help her with the plan?"

Max blinked. Tried to work through what these men would know of what had happened; Furiosa being this injured, he didn't think she'd have had the chance to tell them. He didn't know what she would _want_ to tell them.

"No, uh—" he looked at the trails of water seeping from a pipe along the wall. _A waste_ , he thinks. "Was a— bloodbag." He spat the word. "m'escape kinda… collided. With hers."

"Hmm." Ace looked sceptical. Angry, maybe. "An' she just… _trusted_ you."

“Much as she does,” and Max set his feet, and looked at him in challenge, “ _anyone_.”

The War Boy pushed off the wall as if to shout but then—

"—Boss, _Boss_ ," they heard Austeyr down the hall, voice a little desperate, and the both of them startled. "I don't know where they went, but surely he would _tell_ you if he left."

Max twitched badly when Ace was suddenly beside him in the entrance of the alcove, moving silent for such a big guy, despite his injured ribs.

"—no wait, I will help you, Boss, I promised I would, didn't I?"

They glanced at each other, and Max shrugged.

"Well then at least lean on me... Okay, that's better, nice and upright."

Max and Ace moved into the hallway in unison, and Ace had an expression on his face Max suspected was mirrored on his own. Why the _hell_ was Furiosa - apparently - upright and walking? Why hadn't Austeyr stopped her?

When they caught up to her she was flushed and sweating a little from the effort and moving in the direction of the garages and lifts, not all that far from her room, so it only took a moment before they met up. Max immediately ducked under her arm to brace her other side, and Ace was left wheezing and holding his side, sweating now as well. Furiosa’s head was down, with an annoyed expression, then she shook her head and looked up at Ace, then over at Max.

“Hey,” he asked.

"Fool…" she rasped. "You left.."

He didn't know if she meant just now, or when they'd all been on the lift with the Gigahorse, or at the edge of the salt flats. He supposed it didn't matter. He nodded in agreement.

“You usually wait…" it took her a moment to catch her breath enough to to continue, "at least until…” _until she could see_.

Max cleared his throat, “I had, um, some questions.” He gestured at Ace. Ace looked back at him with incomprehension. Perhaps, maybe, the War Boy actually asked most of the actual questions, but it’d answered questions that Max had been mulling over.

She blinked and looked from face to face, as if trying to process seeing them in the same place.

"Wanted to... say... thanks," she said then.

"...for what?" Max’s presence seemed to only disturb them, her present crew looking at him with hesitance or outright suspicion and here she was, struggling out of bed to look for him. Not a few moments before he and Ace had been about to start shouting at each other, and she might have stumbled into the middle of that. He regretted again that he hadn't just dropped Austeyr off at the gates. He should probably leave sooner than planned, scout out that canyon.

"Bringing me Aus…"

Austeyr ducked his head, suddenly awkward. Max grunted for him to open the door of Furiosa's quarters, and steered her through the doorway.

“He’s y’crew,” Max said, as they lowered her, and stared at Ace until he came in and settled on the bed too. “How you talked about them…” he hummed uncomfortably, “thought to, mm, bring him to you.”

Ace settled in next to Furiosa, a little distance between them, leaving Max crouching awkwardly by the mattress

"So she trusted you. Just like that," Ace said softly, seeing the Boss sink into exhausted slumber.

“Not right away," Max conceded. "She may have,” he shrugged, “hit me in the face, some, first.”

"With her metal hand?" Ace sounded interested despite himself.

"With, hmm, her,” he gestured awkwardly at his left elbow, “and boltcutters."

Ace looked at him differently, like he was inspecting for damage.

"Got off lightly from the look of ya."

"Was still wearin' a muzzle at the time"

"She _trusted_ you." Ace's voice kept catching on that.

Max took his time to answer. He knew she'd betrayed her crew for her escape, guys she'd worked with for years. That she had accepted him as quickly as she had must compound the betrayal.

"Took some.." he looked away, then back to Furiosa. "Some mutual, ah, life-saving."

“Lifesaving you say?” Ace looked at him with even more of a crooked tilt to his mouth, eye ridges climbing in disbelief. Max tried looking at her the way the Warboys did, saw the injuries, the ragged strain of her breath, the flush of fever, and knew that for them seeing it was not the relief of _still alive_ but instead _how could you let this happen to her_.

"Boooys…" Furiosa croaked, sounding exhausted and fed up. It took her a long moment to stop coughing and catch her breath, and for a moment Max saw the same worry in the Warboy's eyes that he knew was in his own.

Max settled down on his ledge, watching her with concern.She needed to be okay. He needed her to. He thought they all needed her to.

 

* * *

* * *

 

_Her belly hurts_

_The Green Place is burning and whatever life was inside of her has gone still, and she's bleeding, sweating, crying, because worse than the pain in her belly is knowing he’s coming for her tonight. He will want to know how his son is but her belly is emptying and she sits in a pool of growing red. And during this one single moment in these many horrible days her calm_ splinters _, because they will blame her for her body’s rejection of his seed and the promised future twentyfold punishment makes the breaths go high and quick in her throat. Because she is so tired. So tired and not knowing from where she’d find more reserves, running on empty._

_But I will survive this, she promises the unsteady shape of her mothers._

_it will be hard, my Furiosa, her mother replies, clasping Furiosa's phantom hand with her own. Both sets of dead fingers she can't feel. We are here, my Fury, says Katee Concannon on her other side._

* * *

Austeyr watched Ace lead Max out of the door and could only hope they wouldn't kill each other. He'd tried telling the story of how they’d met so that Ace might be a little easier on the guy. He hoped it worked and reached out to feel the Boss' forehead. 

She flinched away from his touch, curling in on herself a little, her arm protectively over her stomach.

"s okay Boss, it's just me," he murmured. Her eyes snapped open.

"He can't know," she told him with sudden, feverish intensity, not seeming to really see him. "You can't tell him I lost it, he'll be so angry, he'll kill me…" 

Austeyr startled, remembering a time he'd kept her company when she was with Organic. She'd gotten some ugly scratches on her stomach from a Buzzard rake weapon, and there'd been this moment when she'd woken to see the Organic bent over her. She'd pleaded with him much as she had just now, and Austeyr hadn't really understood, had thought it was about the Immortan knowing she was injured. 

"You gotta help me hide the blood,” she said, and he looked around wildly, examined her and the bedding, because was she bleeding? Was she injured in ways he hadn't known? Had her moon-dark started? But there was no blood that he could see, and in the sheen of fever in her eyes there was the glaze of fear. “Help me, he can't know.”

“The Immortan?”

“Don’t tell him I lost the baby,” she hissed. It was a weak sound, closer to pleading than it was to an order. "Don't tell him, _please_."

“I won’t,” Aus promised, mouth trying out the shape of the words, testing his understanding, because how could he not? “I’ll help you, I'll keep it from Joe.”

She sagged as if he’d gotten it right. But.

But she _missed_ him. Did she not? The Boss missed being in the Immortan's favour, having his attention lavished on her. That was what Ace said. Austeyr had never had cause to question it.

Instead this would mean she’d been, still was, afraid of the Immortan. It felt as blasphemous as anything he’d ever heard of, that their Imperator feared so deeply.

However Austeyr knew how much courage was just the flipside of fear; the inherent secret all War Boys kept from each other and from themselves. They were all of them afraid. Of dying and not being worthy, of leaving this world mediocre and soft and unremembered.

So maybe, maybe the Boss was just afraid of not bearing Joe’s sons proper? Of her body being mediocre? He’d seen the silvery marks on her lower belly underneath the scars from that Buzzard’s rake. She must have come close to bearing the Immortan a child once.

Even as he thought this, Austeyr shook his head. It didn’t match her face and her tone and the way she stressed her words. It didn’t match the look about her eyes and the set of her mouth, and it tugged at his memories, because. Truthfully?

It didn't match the way her face went cold and still whenever somebody mentioned the Immortan. It never had.

It was outward directed instead of inward, had always seemed more like anger than regret or shame, and that had always confused Austeyr, but he had figured that perhaps he’d just not known his Boss as long as the others. Maybe he was reading her wrong and making too much of a big deal, seeing things that weren’t there. He didn’t want to mess up how the Ace wanted them to handle it, which seemed to be to her satisfaction. Moreover didn’t want to hassle his superiors with something they’d probably already seen and known about. And as time went by, Austeyr integrated the stories and culture around him and simply assumed that that was how Furiosa always reacted, that his first impression must be wrong.

Now he’s hearing that Furiosa’s killed Joe, but she’s not reacting like a War Boy that won a tussle that got him better gear and a spot on a crew. She did not strut or crow or look triumphant; the few lucid moments he’d seen in the short time since he’d arrived, she looked maybe grimly satisfied and not at all curious about her new status or the things that she’d won. She was staying in her old room instead of the Immortan’s rooms, and it was more bare than she’d left it. And just now, she’d dreamt that he’d been alive again, as if it was a nightmare, the kind you got with the Night Fevers, the kind that had you wake up screaming and sweating. As if Joe wasn't a bitterweet memory but the most terrifying thing that might occur to her.

"I won't tell," he repeated, because it seemed to calm her. “Can trust me with it.”

"Where's the Fool?" she said, as if the previous exchange was already forgotten.

"Um—" he struggled to switch gears, mind still churning with new understanding. "He left with Ace."

She suddenly started struggling to sit up, a determined light in her eyes. Austeyr wanted to press her back down to the bed, to stop her from going anywhere, but she wobbled, and he ended up supporting her to her feet.

"Boss, they've just gone to talk, I'm sure they'll be right back—"

“He leaves,” she hauled in a breath and rose up, “if he thinks he’s... not needed.”

Austeyr didn’t know whether to slow her down or to push her back, or even _how_ to do either: he didn’t want to aggravate her injuries further when she was already red and sweating with it.

“Boss, wait a moment, take it slow.”

“Last time,” she replied with jaw set and fever-glossed forehead, heading towards the door, “he slipped away.” Furiosa pressed a hand against it, “Was quick…. didn't notice in time..”

She opened the door and used the momentum to start lurching down the hallway. Austeyr did the only thing he could, which was to go after her and offer his good arm for her to learn on.

Later, as Ace and Max got her back into her quarters, Austeyr stayed behind in the hallway, leaning against the wall, trying to settle his mind back into some sort of order. It had been a relief he'd scarcely been able to believe that she'd welcomed him back, despite not getting even a lance off, despite being mediocre in the fight against the Buzzards, despite the lumps on his side hampering his throwing arm. For some unknown, V8 blessed reason, she considered him not only still part of her crew but apparently always had. And now she had— he blew out a breath— She had _thanked Max for getting Austeyr back to her._

 _Thanked_ him.

For bringing her _Austeyr._

He could count on one hand the times he'd heard her express gratitude to anybody, and have fingers left over. Appreciation, that wasn't so rare. Praise, if you'd served well. But thanks?

Thanks as if she'd been given something of high value? He can’t wrap his mind around it.

It had to be the fever.

But the fever didn't make her afraid of Joe, he knew that. It had just made her confused enough to show it, something he knew she would otherwise never have done. It had made her disoriented enough to re-live losing the Immortan's child, and her terror of the punishment that would follow. Her terror of Joe.

He felt like he had known this, no, _should_ have known this. Austeyr felt like his world got subtly realigned, as he blinked and felt the clearer for it.

Did Ace know? He clearly hadn't, before. Or maybe…. maybe the 'she misses the Immortan' explanation was just the line they'd decided on…? But no, Austeyr thought he would have seen that. Ace wasn't good at untruths.

Given the way the Ace suddenly kept his distance, no longer slept next to the Boss, retracted his hand when he reflexively reached for her… Given the way he watched her like she was a lancehead gone unstable.. Austeyr was pretty sure Ace knew _now_ , and that the knowledge was very new.

* * *

Ace tried to work through the pounding ache of his ribs. He shouldn't have gotten up, Miss Gale had been clear about it, but the duties of an Ace couldn't wait. He resented that he'd had to let the Wastelander support the Boss, but he'd barely been standing himself by that point.

He still didn't know what to make of the man. If it was true what Max said, that their escapes had collided… The only reason he could think of why she'd taken the Wastelander with her was because she'd truly had no other choice, and that thought hurt so much he shied away from it, because he'd been _right there_ , he and the crew shaken off her back like sand flies, punched off her running board like Wretched from the lift.

He looked at her, at her flushed, feverish face, and turned away at the swell of pain that clenched his throat.

Kompass and Rachet must be having the easier day of it, with the Tenday ceremonies.


	17. Epic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Epic: An ordinary climb rendered difficult by a dangerous combination of weather, injuries, darkness, lack of preparedness or other adverse factors._
> 
> “You can’t take him!”
> 
> “It’s Tenday, we get the Pups on Tendays,” the War Boy declares.
> 
> “That was only under Joe!” a heavily pregnant breeder shouts. Her tattoo marks her as from the breeder court.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We decided to build an altar of steering wheels that had both the wheels of warriors past and present.”
> 
> — Colin Gibson on the Altar, “The Art of Mad Max Fury Road”

Kompass and Rachet walk in the direction of the altar room, moods lifted a little with the thought that some things can still be the same, even after everything in the Citadel changed. The reassuring traditions of Tenday can be maintained. Furiosa had said so herself, wan and pale and feverish, when she'd told them to go.

Austeyr, looking between Ace and the Wastelander, had opted to stay with the Boss.

The good mood lasts until a pup comes running up from the direction of the Breeder's quarters.

"Kompass!" he gasps, "Come quick, it's all—" he turns around and leads them in the direction of shouted voices.

“You can’t take him!”

“It’s Tenday, we get the Pups on Tendays,” the War Boy declares.

“That was only under Joe!” a heavily pregnant breeder shouts. Her tattoo marks her as from the breeder court.

“You get them for the other nine, we get the tenth!”

“And then you take them away the moment they can be useful to you and you paint them white and tell them to forget their names and their mothers! How _convenient._ ” The breeder sneers.

And it’s then that Janey comes walking up, together with Joe's widows. They've obviously been sent for by the breeders. Kompass feels his face freeze, because yesterday— he'd been so _sure_ , and he doesn't know why but he suddenly flinches at the things he's said. He hasn't changed his mind, he _hasn't_ , but he shouldn't have maybe said— because it doesn't _matter_ because:

Joe is _dead_. The Boss killed him.

He can just imagine what Furiosa would say if she knew he'd spoken to her new crew that way. The women say they're not her new crew, but as far as she is concerned they must be. She must have thought them worthy of her efforts, and even if he doesn't understands that _at all_ , even if he's angry at the mediocre plan and the mediocre choices that got her so injured, he'll need to work with these women if he wants to work for Furiosa.

This morning he's not so sure that it matters what these women say about Joe. Not when they’re trying to get the Citadel united, not when he’d been scrambling all over the towers yesterday trying to get everyone driving on the same road. He could barely look at them for how he feels like he’d shot himself in the foot.

The breeder turns to look at Joe’s widows, explaining that the War Pups and War Boys have come to take the pups. She looks hard and angry when she's finished. “You’ve said things were going to be different now, _how is this different_?”

“Their sons will not be battle fodder,” Capable tries to tell the War Pups gently as they clutch the toddlers to themselves, then looking up firmly at various injured War Boys who are blocking the women as best they can.

“What’s the argument?” Kompass asks gruffly, getting a headache already. All the War Boys turn to him in relief; his being of Furiosa’s crew, the Ace’s second, and with all other crew out with the war party, he is probably the highest ranking War Boy who can still do war. Well, mostly. He's left behind the sling, but his arm ain't exactly fixed yet.

The widows turn to look at him too, but hard-faced, suspicious of him now.

“They’re taking our sons!” came the cry from a breeder.

When Kompass turns to Rachet, the War Boy simply shrugs. Kompass looks at the mullish looking group of breeders, and Joe’s widows, and the two elders that Furiosa brought back, “We’re taking them for a day like we always do.”

“Things are different now,” Cheedo insists aggressively. “The babies are not yours.”

“Not all yours either,” Kompass points out, facing the breeders still reaching for their sons, “Or did y’all forget us pistoning you up?”

Toast makes to lunge for him but Janey holds her back, whispering in her ear, glancing at the infants, still.

“We ask for one day,” he continues patiently, trying to figure out the problem, trying to be placating, “It’s not like they’re useful to you, eh?”

That only seemed to enrage them more, “What use does a baby need to have to its mother?! We _love_ them!”

“You… do?” Kompass blinks and tilts his head, completely confounded.

That rocks their anger back on its heels and his confusion seems mirrored.

“The Pups, they’re ours,” he tries to awkwardly explain, “Of course we. I mean why would _you_ ? They can’t protect the Citadel for you, they can’t repair the pipes for you, or climb the farms to grow your greens, or— they’re _tiny_ , how could they!” He bursts out frustrated and with a little bit of shame, “And it might not be the cushy dens of the breeders when we take them, but War Boys protect our own, best we can.”

“ ‘ _Cushy’_!” one of the breeders yells, indignant, but Capable holds her and asks for a moment from her with her eyes.

“You think,” Capable asks slowly, looking around at the Boys, “you all think, that the babies aren’t loved by their mothers because they aren’t useful, like War Boys are?”

“What breeder ever cared even much for a War Boy?” Kompass asks rhetorically.

“What War Boy ever cared for a ‘breeder’!” one of the women screamed, “as more than a reward? A hole to—”

“Do you even Remember any of us?” one of the War Boys yelled, slumping on a crutch and a splinted leg, “You see so many—”

“You make it sound like a _choice—_!” One of the breeders, cradling a girl pup, hisses.

Kompass shrieks a whistle between two fingers. A baby begins to cry. He feels suddenly exhausted, _This is getting nowhere._ He could see the argument spiraling out ahead of them, the War Boys looking defiant and the women looking mulish and the War Pups looking torn and the littlest ones howling their heads off. They cannot afford this right now with power so unstable and newly held, with men in the crevices of the Citadel looking for an angle where they could seize power and with possible war parties bearing down on them in perhaps another ten or eleven days.

“You,” Kompass looks towards the ex-wives, “You said there will be change. But you can’t leave us without foundation, we still need our history.”

“When did we ever deny you that?” Toast asks, eyes narrowed.

 _She doesn’t even know what they’re asking of us_ , he realizes then tries to curb the immediate rage that tries to lance his logic, tries to remember the women as he’d met them in the Council where he’d been kindly invited, where he'd been _heard_ , and realizes, _but how could they know if none of them ever attend?_

He measures them with his gaze and turns abruptly to the Altar, and the War Boys, “The women are invited to the Remembering.”

“What!”

“But Kompass! they won’t—”

“This has never been _done_ , how can—”

“ ‘ _Immortan_ ’ Joe is _dead_.” He says sharply, staring them down, “Things change. They won’t leave the Pups, so bring them with us.”

There’s some shifting among the War Boys, the older ones especially, but the War Pups are already streaming towards the Altar. A couple of the injured War Boys finally break from their stand-off, helping pick up an infant if they see a pup struggling with two. The breeders give him a quick glance but dash after their own pups as all the young ones take positions in and around the metal structure.

“Tenday is being wasted, quit being so mediocre about it and pull up your pants already,” he orders the straggling War Boys. They all exchange a look then hesitantly head towards the Altar as well, giving an aborted motion to stop the breeders holding girl pups, halted when they catch sight of Kompass’ glare. The widows catch the exchange and hesitantly give him a nod and Kompass feels a pressure build in his forehead that he resists the urge to rub. He’d applied fresh grease for the Remembering, knowing he’d be expected to lead.

Kompass strides past them and halts in front of the wheels. Rachet comes up to him and hands a tiny Pup over and Kompass cradles him in his good arm with long practice. There's a breeder standing nearby, leaning on the arm of another, keeping an anxious eye on the tiny Pup.

“The newest?” Kompass asks.

“Just yesterday,” Rachet confirms.

Kompass nods. The older War Boys with the smallest pups also gather closest to the altar. The women are scattered around the edges, each sticking close to whoever has their pup. They're looking around in curiosity, peering up at where the light breaks into the room, and watching the War Boys guardedly. He steps into a pillar of light and clears his throat.

“ _Today_ ,” Kompass announces with the singsong of ritual, “Todayis another Tenday.”

The room quiets and the War Pups settle in. The words echo against the walls, belling like the way the light struck the metal of the wheels before him, scattering color.

“Today is another day we can Remember. A day where we have new ears, to help us keep Witness.” He calls out.

“ _Witness!_ ” answers the crowd. It is small and hollow to their usual Tendays, but that can’t be helped.

“Small ones,” he says to the pup in his arms, “Small ones,” he raises his gaze to those War Pups around them, “May you grow strong, strong enough to hold these memories, strong enough to also be Remembered. One day you will pick or receive a name and it will be your strength. But until then, lean against these names: I Remember Morsov, roving lead on Furiosa’s crew; the Buzzards had been seen over the crest of the hill...”

And Kompass starts in on his memories, with those he’d Witnessed from their ride out, and the flight of bodies from the Rig as it hit the storm. He paused at the end of his own retelling, for others to jump in with names from their memories or for Witnesses only they have seen. Like this, he works his way backwards day-by-day, Remembering the most Historic deaths, others taking up the lead if his mouth grows sore from speaking, or from recalling.

They go through fifty names and their death-stories, then a hundred. The stories roll out easily despite their number because he knows these stories, he’d _grown_ on these stories like every War Pup. Like every War Boy.

It's comforting, to Remember this long line of names, to speak their history out loud. Half-lives are short, but they have meaning; this is what they are built upon. Everything may have changed since the last Tenday, but these names, these stories, are still the same.

There are pauses every twenty names or so, where the War Pups are encouraged to race each other around the Altar, sometimes mimicking the stories they’ve just heard, and for food and for aqua-cola and for the getting rid of both.

When the tiny pup Kompass is holding begins to wail, he rocks it absently while looking around for a bottle of mother’s milk. Instead the breeder who is hovering nearby, though she's found something to sit on, reaches out for the pup. He resists for a moment, but the wail rises in pitch, and she gives him a hard look.

"You'd let him scream? Or feed him cold milk so he'll be screaming with belly ache later? When I can just feed 'im?"

Kompass can’t fault that even if it makes him grimace, he'd never even considered that feeding the pups milk from a bottle might hurt them. “Come up here then, so he can continue to Witness.”

The woman looks a bit startled but moves forward, and he shifts the pup carefully over to her. It quiets almost immediately as she cradles it to her chest, and he glances at the precious little bottle of priceless milk, the way they're always having to beg for enough of them to feed the pups during Tenday. _Huh_.

"She can't stand very long yet," Miss Gale points out, and Kompass nods, takes the stool she was sitting on and moves it to next to him.

All around him more women reclaim their pups to feed them, and the Altar room grows quiet with the content sounds of it, and the Remembering resumes.

Eventually the stories come to a stop at a hundred sixty and three names, and Kompass holds a hand up after the First Witnessed.

“Traditionally, here, we would remember how Immortan Joe became ‘Immortan’. How he went into death and came out living.” He raises his eyes up in challenge at the ex-wives, “But he’s dead now, we’ve all seen it. But none of us knows the telling of it.”

A buzz starts up from the War Boys, the War Pups. There was dismay in it, and disbelief, and anger, and doubt. Kompass hopes that one of the widows would step up for the telling because the telling of it is how War Boy histories are kept and if there’s no record then the story is free for the taking, as is the power of it.

“Who can Remember us the story?” He prods and stares at the widows in challenge, because if none knows then someone will step up and take credit, or will twist the story in their telling to better favor themselves. The resulting powershifts might blindside Furiosa. And he can’t allow that. “Who’ve Witnessed it?”

“I have.” The wife with the long, dark hair calls out, and steps forward. She stumbles a step but raises her chin and strides to the Altar.

Kompass almost looks forward to it, despite how much this story alters the normal Tenday, because perhaps now he might understand the Boss’ thinking.

Except as the story comes out, Kompass is more disbelieving. Cheedo does the telling with a fine air and a brisk pace, starting from when they set out to when they came back, and with a determined glint to her eye tells of Furiosa ripping Joe’s face off and collapsing in the back of the stolen ride.

“She was _dying_ ,” Cheedo says, voice echoing in the room, “her breathing was horrible, listening to it—” and she holds a hand to her chest and out comes the noise of an ailing engine, of a rotting belt, of nightfevers and gutwounds, and the entire room shudders.

“You understand,” she stares them down, “that when we saw the Wastelander take out a knife it was not like we knew what else to do.” War Pups shifted closer to each other, knowing the shape of Citadel mercy.

She paused and took a breath and in the silence said, “He stabbed her.”

Gasps pile on top of each other in the echoing room to form a wordless outcry.

 _What_ . Kompass feels anxiety claw at his lungs, and blurts out, “But she _lives_ , I just saw her!”

“She lives _again!_ ” Cheedo nods, raising her voice, “Because the Wastelander stabbed her and she breathed then faded because of it; but then he gave her his blood and she lived, because of _that_. He, who was angry at you all enough for using him as a bloodbag that you had to muzzle him, he chose to give her his blood.”

The chatter grew louder and Cheedo lets the sound rise a little before her voice rings out again, “ _Furiosa lives again_ , because of him, because he saw beyond the use that Joe had given him.” She looks at each of the War Pups carrying those even younger, “As you will each live again, if you are more for each other than what anyone defines for you.

“Miss Cheedo!” The Pups breathe, and whisper, and look at each other.

The room’s buzzing again, high and bright, but Kompass only feels a dull confusion and frustration, and the anger that grows from both. At this story of how hard Furiosa fought to leave, how this man helped who’d been trusted like _crew_ , and undercutting all it how desperately the widows were recounted as wishing to run from Joe. How Furiosa aided them, like she’d wished to run too. And he wants to call the story false, but he’s heard her lungs and he’s seen the healing stab wounds, and when he’d met up her, yelling at her, she’d looked at him as if unsure of her place, of her welcome, of being able to return.

“That’s only half the story,” one of the injured War Boys - Lance - shouts, bringing sound to a halt again. “What about Furiosa’s plans for the coup?”

“What coup?” Janey asks from in the back. He catches sight of a flash of red-hair, what looks like widow Capable stepping up from the side.

“The Imperator struck down Immortan Joe for control of the Citadel, didn’t she?” Lance insisted. It’d been what Kompass had assumed, what he _wishes_ would have happened because it’s so much easier to wrap his head around, and he’s not surprised that other War Boys had thought the same.

“Were you even paying attention to the story?” the dark-skinned wife bites out.

“I was right here! You didn’t mention any of it, how she got the idea—”

“It was Angharad’s idea.” Capable cut in.

Lance blinks, shakes it off, rages, “But what about _Furiosa_ , why would she even do this?” A chorus of agreement came from the rest of the War Boys, “You were all in the best of things, Joe did everything for you, did the best he could to protect you, why would she take you away from that? _Why would you let her?_ I get her wanting more power but—”

“I think, young Cheedo,” Janey interrupts, eyes hard. In fact Kompass realizes all of the women were giving them stonefaced looks, as the elder continues, “you should continue from the _very_ beginning, when you were first ‘blessed’ with Joe’s presence. As much as you can stand to say.”

And she who had seemed so tall a moment ago sinks into herself and suddenly looks young, “I… they took me from my family and brought me to the Vault.”

“Well furnished, I hear,” a War Boy sneers from a corner, jealousy reeking. “Gives y’all the best we find from the malls.”

The ex-wife shakes her head, “it’s not, I mean he, Joe, touched me and—”

“Oh he _touched_ you, the Redeemer, what a _hardship_!” laughter rings out.

“ _Schlangers_!” The scream rips through the room, “You _shut your mouth_ on what you don’t know. I protected Cheedo from the worst of it, she’s just not saying it.”

“It’s not my story,” Cheedo says helplessly as the pale dagger-woman strides down towards her in her gangle walk, “I didn’t know if you’d want them to know.”

“Have I ever shied from saying what no one wants to hear?” the dagger singsonged. “The Vault _hurt_. He made us bleed like he releases aqua-cola.” Her fingers reaches down to cup around Cheedo’s wrist.

Dag throws her gaze sideways at the room, “Every moment in there was more cold and more dark and more afraid than every moment I’ve spent here.”

Kompass gives an awkward look around, this was nothing like the rumored luxuries of the heights, not even near the comfort of the Imperator’s levels, and Lance voiced what all the others were thinking, “But you can’t be _serious_ —!”

“A Warboy once said,” a voice rises above them, high. And when they turn, one of the women’s perched between two pups, hair shorn almost Warboy-close. Toast it was, and, “He said that our War Rig’s engine was ‘running hot, and real thirsty.’ You listen to engines right?”

Toast’s eyes are angry, weighting their value. The War Pups hum around her and Kompass gives a nod.

“And if it’s running hot?” she prompts.

“You stop,” the pups answer immediately, “you cool it down or the engine breaks.”

Toast makes a sharp tch with her tongue, “See, even pups know better; _Joe doesn’t stop_.”

There’s a confused noise shattering through the crowd as the War Pups look up at their elders, as blackthumbs look appalled, as small groups of War Boys start chattering, and a couple who’d simply exchanged looks, jaws sharp, neck stiff.

" 'Didn't’," said one of breeders said softly, as if reminding.

Toast gives a shudder, “yeah. He ‘didn’t’ stop. The bastard’s dead, good riddance.” She looks like she would spit at his memory, if she had the chance.

Kompass is still reeling, because none of this fits any better than it did yesterday _._ He looks at Rachet helplessly but the younger man seems even more lost than him. When he turns to look for some sort of support from the remaining older Boys, they looked thoughtful or confused or mullish. Not a one looked like he had an answer to this, this sort of Witnessing.

Because that’s what it was, Kompass knows the shape of grief too well not to recognize it.

And it’s here that the blood-haired one speaks, “Do you know what it is to be afraid at night? Cold no matter what you try?“

She sounds like she’s speaking of the nightfevers, but the women were full-lives how could—

“Because we know. We know what it’s like to hurt through nighttimes enough to wonder if we’d see the morning. Because that’s when he would touch us.”

—that can’t mean, they must be exaggerating, it’s nothing like—

“Do you know what it is to have no control over what your body grows? Because we know that too, Joe gives us lumps, and sometimes we name them before they’re ripped from us.”

—a couple War Boys near the edges start whispering, the ones near the center holds their faces like stone. Kompass listens like watching an incoming crash, with the seconds pulled long.

“Do you know that Angharad,” and her voice breaks just the slightest here, and then strengthens, “She cut patterns into her skin.”

And the War Pups murmur, and the War Boys tilt their heads in her direction a little, at that something familiar.

“She cut patterns and Joe _beat_ her for it, for scratching up his property.” Capable said and raised her voice over the ensuing outcry, “But she didn’t stop because it was hers. Her body was _hers_ , not Joe’s.”

Kompass watches as this thought rolls over the crowd, how every War Boy paints themselves white but still, _still_ , etch up their skin with their own. Were such things really in defiance of being one of Joe’s? Did allowing them on his War Boys mean Joe had no care or claim on them? He fingered his own patterns at his wrist; the N, S, E, and W etched at the base of long, deep vertical slashes up his forearm.

“We’re not so different, don’t you think? The same fears,” She ends a bit softer. “Nux, he told me some of it.”

“And he was like that for all of you?” Kompass’ mind is ticking over some realization, slow, a pressure in his head that he wishes he could avoid, “all the wives?”

“As far as Miss Giddy could remember.” She nods, “apparently he hasn’t changed much.”

There’s an intake of breath next to him, and when Kompass glances over Rachet’s eyes were wide.

“Furiosa,” he breathes out.

"But the Immortan — the Boss—” Rachet protests, “she'd always go real quiet when we talked about the Immortan. 'Cause it hurt to be reminded of—" they've repeated this to themselves, to each other, so many times, but the women's eyes on him make Rachet lose steam a little. "..of what she'd…" he swallows thickly. "...lost..?"

Kompass feels a confused, murderous queasyness rise in him at finally confronting the thought of anybody hurting the Boss, making her feel afraid or out of control. The image of her face when she'd woken up on Organic's ledge that one time, with the man bent over her, flashes before his face. The trapped-animal panic, the utter relief in her eyes when she'd spotted Kompass nearby.

And Kompass’ insides tangle up completely. “We didn’t know,” he croaks.

“You didn’t?” one of the breeders asks skeptically. Her eyes are hard and flat and like Furiosa’s.

“No!” He couldn't think about this right now, couldn't process all the ways this possible new angle - if it were true - would change things. Would change every time he'd ever touched the Boss, even if he would never— He catches sight of a scar on that accusing breeder’s shoulder and it’s not like the scars are rare, sometimes during breedings War Boys would— like marking a thing as their own, putting your name on a knife or a tool, _oh_ — and Kompass loses all control of his lungs as well. “Yes—,” except not _all_ the men behaved like that, not crew at least, the Boss would have had their _hides_ , but… then. The times when she grew cold. The times when men go unWitnessed. “maybe? ...maybe.” Maybe _enough_ did though, just enough that seems like every breeder he sees is scarred by it.

He slumps a little at the realization.

The woman sits back as if satisfied at his dismay.

He finds himself furious in turn, because he’s afraid, because the ground under his feet feels like sliding sand.

These women might be wrong. (But if they were right why didn’t he realize sooner? How had he never been able to even see this, to realize this, when he’d been tasked to observe and anticipate and throw himself bodily into the path of whatever might damage his superiors?) Wouldn’t he have seen _something_ , if they were right? (But there were so many who’d agreed with the story, there were no surprise on their faces) How had he not seen even with these many thousand-days in the presence of Furiosa (but there was always those little things he could never explain, which he could only attribute to Furiosa being immutable and epic and unknowable)… and _how,_ he realizes with a sick feeling, had he not heard more meaning when these women tried to tell him yesterday?

Kompass finds himself confused and his confusion is his anger and he takes this anger and looks at each of the women and demands, “You will tell this story in future rememberings,” he turning around to also take in the breeders and the elders Furiosa brought back with her, “You will tell the full story, every one of you. So it is Remembered.” He turns to look at the pups, at the babes, “So this doesn’t happen again.”

(Because the telling of it is how War Boy histories are kept and if there’s no record then the story is free to become twisted.)

Kompass wonders how much of Furiosa he ever really knew.

“We’re bringing our girl babies then,” one of the breeders demands in return, “You can’t just take our stories and not let them benefit too!”

He looks at her confused, “You’ve already brought her in, you are already here.

“We’ll have to find more space maybe, and some places to sit,” one of the War Pups suggest, sitting next to that Wretched they’d met at the Council, what was her name... “met some deadly Wretched types, they might have some Remembering to share too.”

“Do it then,” Kompass huffs, as Capable strides up to him.

“I would like to do a Remembering,” she asks. “More than one, if I’m allowed?”

Kompass nods and steps aside, watches as the breeder with the youngest pup, now sleeping, offers him to Capable, who cradles him carefully. Kompass hovers nearby still, empty armed, as Capable begins in the traditional call.

“I Remember Angharad, she was the bravest of us, she said it first: We are not Things...”

And the room ripples with her words.

* * *

Capable Remembers Angharad and Miss Giddy and Nux, and then Miss Gale comes forward and says Valkyrie and Maadhi and Vicks and Gilly and Keeper of Seeds, and Kompass doesn't have time to think about this even though he needs to, needs to understand how these were somehow the Boss' people, because then one of the breeders, her belly large with pup, comes forward to Remember for the breeders.

There are many names.

Names Kompass has never heard, strange names that sometimes sound like music. Shankara, Tanganutura. After a few of them, the other breeders start saying their own, sometimes with explanations, sometimes without:

"Brahmastra five moons grown, born all twisted..."

"Yelte..."

"Yindi, four years old, kicked by an Imperator..."

"Maryanne..."

"Raina..."

And then the breeder pauses, eyes dashing to the other breeders and to the widows, and starts saying breeder names, perhaps as many as those War Boys that’d ever fell, historic.

Kompass feels his breath catch in his chest. He'd known there weren't always the same breeders when the War Rig crew visited the court, but he'd put that down to some of them havin' full bellies and not needin' to be bred, staying in the breeders' living quarters instead. And to their being half-lives maybe, flaming out quiet and soft.

He did not know so many died when having their pups. He did not know there's nothing soft about birthing pups. That there was so much blood and pain and defiance in the face of it.

The Gates of Valhalla ought to have been open to them, he thinks, then flinches at his own blasphemous thoughts. Nothing is right anymore, nothing makes _sense_ , and people keep lookin' at him to make it right somehow, and his head aches and the voice of the breeder - Many, her name is Many - sounds hollow for a moment.

He'd thought the breeders were _safe_ in their cushy court, well fed and comfortable, kept safe by the War Boys, but now he knows the War Boys put them in danger, _caused_ this, and he feels _sick_. Now he's thinking about one girl he— he'd liked her, she'd let him ask questions about what felt good, what didn't, and he'd never seen her again, did she, had she... and he's thinking about the faint, silvery lines on Furiosa's belly and the scars, and he—

Someone brushes up against his arm, and it's Janey, small and slight and _calm_ in a way that lets his lungs open a little better.

"It's about time to round off, isn't it?" she says softly, and he nods, trying to find words that fit the closing of such an unusual Tenday.

“War Boys,” he calls in the traditional way, “brothers in arms!”

The Warboys and Pups raise their voice in response and its a small noise, making the room sound empty with those who are missing.

Kompass closes his eyes and shakes his head at himself. He thinks for a moment.

Opens his mouth with a pause, then fangs it. “ _Brothers_ ,“ he calls instead, “and Sisters who have just joined."

The answering call this time is louder, fuller.

"This Tenday is—” he searches for words in the faces of those who look at him, at War Boys injured and War Pups worried and babes who did not know much, at women who were breeders and widows and elders. And all of them perhaps now Furiosa’s for her having killed someone previously unkillable. Kompass looks at the altar and remembers his many Tendays and speaks out-loud almost to himself, “Tendays are our foundation. We have always crafted ourselves by the stories told on this day.”

He takes a breath.

“The traditional ending to our Tendays has us tell the story of the Immortan Joe. But the Immortan Joe is dead. That story has _already_ changed, and we must either change with it or live with a foundation false. Drive with axels askew.” He looks back at the crowd, “I see some of you looking at me for answers; I ask you, do you know how to drive, or repair, or lance? Do you have eyes and ears? You can seek and hear truth as well as I can.”

He thinks of yesterday, of how hard he'd fought against hearing truth. Glances at where the widows are standing.

"Maybe better."

* * *

The Tenday meeting broken up, pups ran around, and some of the unpainted ones were encouraged to try lifting the big wheel. Most of the breeders claimed their pups and left quickly. Kompass stood very still for what felt like long minutes, trying to get his heartbeat down.

He gradually became aware of Rachet talking to somebody, and listened in.

"She only came to us once, when she needed her shoulder unjammed," a breeder said. "But we know she talked to you about.. about us, we know she did."

Kompass turned toward the conversation. The breeder had a baby in her arms, one the pups hadn't tried to claim, so must be a girl. "She told us she'd make sure you fellas were nice with us. Careful."

"Said we'd better be as careful with you as we were with her," Rachet nodded. "And that she'd hear it if anyone weren't."

"Do you remember a fella, crew of yours, kinda scrawny, had staples in his neck, big gear scar on his chest? Visited us.. well, about a two hundred days ago."

“Who?” Kompass searched through his memories but drew up a blank. And that stilled him; if they had him on crew and Furiosa chose not to remember him, with what he’d learned of today...

Rachet looked at Kompass, frowning. "The Gear? Think that's what he called himself. Weren't on the crew for long."

Kompass felt his eyes widen, because the memory crashed home. He hadn't been entirely in on it, but he'd been aware of some heated debate about The Gear, because the Boss or Ace hadn't chosen him; he'd been the son of the Imperator Prime. They hadn't wanted him for the crew, but accepting him had come with a lot of new salvage the War Rig engines had been in need of. Kompass had kept a close eye on him, especially when he was near the Boss - he'd never been allowed into her quarters.

"The Gear," he nodded, with a sense of dread. He'd protected Furiosa from him, but maybe that hadn't been _enough._

The breeder nodded. "Her name was Liala." He recognised that name from the Remembering.

It took Kompass a few seconds to understand the woman was talking about a girl The Gear must have bred.  
"She— she died?"

He vaguely remembered there'd been unrest at the other side of the court that one time, breeders fussing over a girl lying still and pale while the Warboys left. He'd thought it was a new girl upset over a rough breedering, hadn't thought much about it, and that suddenly filled him with shame.

Now Kompass thought about it, The Gear hadn't been Witnessed. He'd just. Not been there, one training, any mention of him dismissed by Furiosa, and summarily been replaced and forgotten. 

* * *

Kompass finds himself seeing off the last of the pups, making sure they make their way back to their mothers without incident, trying not to think of much in order to keep moving, but there’s a voice that catches his attention and—

“Ek het jou soveel verlang! Ah!” the secondary breeder nuzzled against her pup’s cheek as he withstood it sulkily and then leaned against her in return.

“What?” Kompass finds himself walking over, but the breeder clutches her son against her chest and steps backwards. He stops once he realizes she's backing away from him. Asks, “What did you just say?”

“Ah,” she twitches, shoulders thrown back but head bowed as if she couldn’t decide whether to stand firm or curl up. “It’s nothing, I didn’t mean anything by it.” She holds her pup as if he was to be taken away.

“What’s your name?” Kompass asks feeling something large well in his chest.

“I didn’t mean anything by it! I’m not— It’s just,” she says helplessly, “the sisters say things are changing, we should be allowed to say our mother’s tongues outside of the breeding rooms." Her shoulders straighten, and her voice grows defiant. "You don’t have the right to make us say or think everything the same!”

“I’m not!” Kompass yells, because her twitchy, defiant fear is doing something to him. He doesn't _want_ — he's trying so hard, to make the Citadel work, to make things better like Furiosa wants, and she's looking at him like he's a _monster_. He catches himself, and breathes deep, relaxes his hands, lowers his voice. “Just… what does it mean? That’s it, that’s all I want.”

She looks at him and says quietly, “ ‘I missed you so much.’ ” She looks like she’s bracing herself. He works his throat a little, mouth dry.

“And you learned it from your mother?”

“Yes. It’s. It’s rare,” she gives a short deprecating laugh, “I think she’d made it up, some days, because I’ve never heard anyone else speak it.”

“...where is she now?” He notices her past tense and he doesn’t know what he feels.

She gives him a startled glance, “You’ve heard her story already, I told it during my Remembering.”

He finds himself nodding, face stiff, because he didn't recognise any of those names. But then the only name he remembers is Mamma, which probably isn't a name.

She stares. Starts backing away with her pup, and and then, when she's out of range, turns to hurry off.

Kompass’ tongue is stuck in his mouth, around the word, ‘ _goeienag_.’

 _Goodnight._ He thinks about saying it as he watches the back of the woman who is probably his sister, tries to find enough air to say it loud enough, before she’s out of earshot.

Doesn’t make it.

He remembers: _Ek het jou soveel verlang._

He remembers the melody of a song.

He stands there for a very long time, trying to remember the words. (But all he hears is: _stop that baby talk, you’re with us now. Want to become a War Boy do you? Stop crying, you funny thing._

_She's just a breeder. You're a War Pup now._

_Grow up._

_Stop **crying**! Do you hear me?!) _

It’s safer, being angry, but he doesn’t have the energy anymore. His fingers goes to his wrist and dig in where the lines end, a compass rose.

(—his name was the only thing of hers he'd been able to keep.) 


	18. Bottleneck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Bottleneck: A crack with converging sides. Good for placing tapers or other passive protection._
> 
> Ace knew, knowing his men, that Kompass and Rachet have been trying to come to terms with the knowledge that their Imperator really did mean to sweep them off her back like sand flies. He saw their hesitance around her when she looked away from them, their uncertainty when there was nothing immediate to be done like bracing her or getting food or drink. When they look at her, Ace knew that they still saw the sandstorm barreling at them, knowing they weren’t protected from it like Joe’s ex-wives had been. Those women they’d been replaced with. 
> 
> He knew they were braced for another storm, because he was too. Ace couldn’t get the memory of her face in that War Rig out of his mind, as he’d kept askin’ her and askin’ her, and how he’d be completely unable to read anything on it but determination.

It's well into the evening when Kompass and Rachet return. Ace had spent the day still trying to digest what the Boss told him last night about the Organic Mechanic and Joe, still sickened and furious in turns. His chest feels tight with more than his injured ribs. It's like he's an engine trying to work his way through a batch of filthy guzzoline. His filters need a good cleanin'.

Furiosa has slept, interspersed with brief moments of complaining about sleeping. She's exhausted from her ill-advised expedition earlier, so he'd just hummed indulgently and covered her back up with the blankets she'd flung away irritatedly.

Austeyr has stayed by her side for most of the day, her body seeking the closeness of somebody against her, and Austeyr happy to oblige. Ace envies the younger man the uncomplicated gladness of being welcomed by her. Austeyr had fallen long before the storm, long before the dawning realisation that the Boss really wasn't going to stop. He knows of the betrayal, now, but it is a much more distant thing to him. He had feared she would not want him back on her crew, and is relieved that she did even if the lancer still looked at her sometimes like he’s continuously surprised.

Ace knew, knowing his men, that Kompass and Rachet have been trying to come to terms with the knowledge that their Imperator really did mean to sweep them off her back like sand flies. He saw their hesitance around her when she looked away from them, their uncertainty when there was nothing immediate to be done like bracing her or getting food or drink. When they look at her, Ace knew that they still saw the sandstorm barreling at them, knowing they weren’t protected from it like Joe’s ex-wives had been. Those women they’d been replaced with.

He knew they were braced for another storm, because he was too. Ace couldn’t get the memory of her face in that War Rig out of his mind, as he’d kept askin’ her and askin’ her, and how he’d be completely unable to read anything on it but determination.

When the other two return from Tenday it's with thunder in their steps.

"Ace," Kompass says, and his tone is simmering with a shocky sort of distance maybe - Ace isn't sure, but the Wastelander looks up in alarm, and Ace knows immediately that this isn't going to be a conversation for in this room.

He sighs and struggles to his feet.

"Austeyr, come with us." Kompass says, and it’s with a regret and a reluctance that has Austeyr moving with hesitance.

Ace tries to ignore his sinking suspicions as to the topic of conversation (it can’t be what he automatically thinks it to be, can it? how could they have found out?) as he stares at the Wastelander for long seconds, trying to judge if it's safe to leave him alone with the Boss. He remembers the care the feral had taken with her earlier in the day, the concern in his face. Figures it'll be okay for a short time.

"You," he gestures to one of the two pups who stand guard outside her door. "Stand here. You hear anything, or she stirs, or somebody comes for her - you come get me."

There's an empty Imperator's room a few doors down; there are probably more empty rooms on this level, but this one's door is open, so they claim it for the moment. Rachet is full of restless energy, but Kompass is quiet and stiff in a way that makes Ace brace himself.

"They say— the breeders, they say—" Rachet bites out, but then seems to choke down the rest of the words, as if they'll become real when he says them out loud.

"That there was never any treasuring," Kompass finally grinds out. "Said that Joe was— that he hurt them," and he looks queasy from Ace’s long experience with the man, "Hurt the Boss."

Ace sucks a breath in and nearly chokes on it.

Kompass leans against the wall as he says it, shoulders stiff and gaze turned inward, but Rachet stares at Ace, and he can feel the desperate hope. They want him to deny it. They must already know it to be true, but he, who knows the Boss best - or had always thought that he did - can say the words they want to hear.

"What do you think?" Ace says.

Rachet stares at him in mute anger, as if he's betraying them all by not denying it.

"Remember when Axle asked how the Immortan had touched her, so we could do that for her?" Austeyr speaks up suddenly. Ace looks at him, surprised that he even spoke, that he’s even contributing to this conversation.

Kompass and Rachet nod slowly. Furiosa had gone pale and cold, and wordlessly sent them all out of her quarters.

"It was an insult to think we could even match—" Kompass begins.

"I thought she was going to hurl," Austeyr interrupts and Kompass’ mouth snaps shut. “Would she look like that if she’d been missing him with fondness? Or would she look like that if she’d dreaded him and the memories?”

Yeah, Ace remembers that, how upset the crew had been at her anger, at how she hadn't wanted to see any of them for days. The lancer is right, and always did seem Eyes On when there’s any sort of crew conflict, but how did he pick up so quick and off so little when Ace… It took her telling him. Ace is fairly sure Furiosa didn’t have the time nor the clarity to have the sort of conversation again with Austeyr. And when Ace measures the warboy’s face, he seems shocky with his own words, as if the idea is new to him too. It’s not a comforting realization.

Ace feels sick with knowing now how completely alone Furiosa must have been with her upset. That had been the burden of her lie of omission. When she'd first been ordered into the vault as protection for the wives, Ace had been dismayed on her behalf. He'd been sure the Immortan had meant well but it so clearly pained her to be in that place, to be reminded of what she'd lost. Or that’s what he’d thought at the time. She had come back out cold and still, the first few times, but after that she no longer seemed so burdened by her duty, and he'd been both glad for her and surprised. He understood now that she must have talked to the wives, must have made connections with people who shared this part of her. The widows understood a part of her that nobody else, not even her Ace, could know.

(An Ace was supposed to know _everything_. Be the second, the confidante, the person the Imperator could build upon. The link between the crew and the Imperator, and the other way around. The role hadn't existed, before Ace became Furiosa's. Other Imperators had picked an Ace for themselves, trying to imitate the success of their crew, and Ace had become The Ace.)

(He'd been so proud of that, and his chest feels tight at the thought that none of it was true.)

(Maybe he was never her Ace at all.)

Kompass looks like he’d be struck by Austeyr’s words but Rachet only becomes frustrated.

“How would she even look like _what_?” Rachet bursts out, “she’s so—” he makes a vague gesture at his face, “even more than most!”

“Did she seem like she lingered around us before she went to meet Joe and came back quick?” Austeyr shot back. “That she seemed different when she came back from the Vault and those wives?”

Rachet averts his eyes, pointedly ignores it and tries a different angle, “The breeders, they, they seemed so angry though. How could that be _nice_ to be around? How could they be right?”

“It’s nice being angry around people who are angry at the same things you are,” Kompass mutters.

“And you don’t have to be nice to be right.” Ace blew out a breath, fingers pinching the top of his nose, thinking of how the wives looked at him so wary. Wonders if they had a point.

“But it makes it easier,” Rachet protests.

“For _who_ , though?” Ace asks him, wondering how much of Furiosa’s lie was because she couldn’t show the true depth of her rage to him. Wondering how much of her trust in him was riding on such a creaky chassis.

‘ _For us_ ,’ hung in the air. But, this wasn’t about them.

They all looked at each other and shifted uneasily.

* * *

"Remember what we'd do after she'd have to report to Joe?" Kompass says, speaking up into the quiet.

Waiting for the boss, they'd gotten into the habit of all cramming in on one table in the mess. She'd always picked a spot at random between two of the crew, ignoring the place they left open for her until they stopped bothering. Kompass and some of the others had spent any amount of time trying to discern a pattern in her choice of seating. Was it to honour specific members of crew with her presence? Did she get tired of sitting in certain places? Did she want to talk to the men at that part of the table?

But she'd hardly ever spoken, just wedged herself between two warboys and quietly followed the conversations around her. They had always thought that she was sad, after meeting the Immortan in person. Remembering the attentions, the luxuries now denied to her.

This was the first time Kompass looked back on that often-repeated ritual and wondered if she'd been seeking _shelter._

"Always reminded me of—" Austeyr shakes his head. "She sat by me once, and I remember… I wondered… now I think that she acted a lot like she did in the Blood Shed."

Ace looks up sharply, as if he'd found a wheel on the ground. “The Organic Mechanic, he—" Ace set his jaw, “we had a system for ‘im.”

The others nods. Kompass finds himself with a sinking feeling, not liking where this was going.

"Ever think on why that was needed?"

"Otherwise she'd leave, right?" Rachet says. "Needed to make sure she stayed. Got better." He paces around, rocking occasionally from heel to toe, running fingernails up his arms.

"First time I brought her to 'im, the Mechanic said— he acted like—" Ace looks like he was reaching for tools, sightless. "Like she was salvage he'd found."

"She was scared," Austeyr says in a low voice, eyes on the floor. Ace felt disloyal hearing it, and not speaking up in defense. It wasn't something you were supposed to say about anyone, let alone the Boss. "Saw her wake up once, on the ledge. She was scared of Organic."

"Shut up, boofhead," Kompass growls shoving at Austeyr. "Boss would grab 'im by the throat and shout at 'im when any of us were hurt."

“Not _scared_ ,” Rachet bursts out simultaneously, sudden and loud, fingernails tight against his own arm, “No one liked Organic, he’d just— you can’t say—”

"Yeah, but—" Austeyr catches Kompass' wrist before it could shove him again and just holds it a moment in a firm squeeze, nails digging in, until the man drops it. He glares at Rachet until he shuts up. "How about when she was hurt _herself?_ That was different. She was scared of 'im, that was _fear._ When she couldn't—"

"—fight back," Ace supplies, face stony and distant. He hadn’t moved from his spot by the wall, watching them, face tight.

“She _wasn’t_ afraid,” Rachet insists stubbornly.

"Remember when Sump was flamin' out and the Boss made sure one of us were with him 'till the end?" the old War Boy asks.

"I thought that was just to make sure he was Witnessed," Austeyr muses, settling back down out of confusion.

"Sump wanted someone there. Not like he wasn’t going already and sometimes Organic'd do things that—” Rachet swallows, “wouldn’t help repair him anyway."

"Boss says being with Joe was like bein' sick and on the ledges at night." Ace says quietly.

Kompass and Rachet looks puzzled, but Austeyr’s already nodding.

"Scared an' helpless an' hurtin'," he agreed.

"When she was his _Treasure_?" _That still seemed unbelievable,_ Kompass thought. _Who'd mistreat somebody like the Boss?_

"Says there was no treasurin'. Just Use."

Kompass looked around uneasily. These were Imperator Nitreous' quarters. He edged away from the bed.

The Boss had never Used them like other Imperators made Use of certain of their crew, but they’ve seen enough and heard enough from other crews to know what it was like. Nothing like what they had done in her quarters. If the Immortan— if Joe— their _Boss_ …

_"Boss, won't you please tell us how the Immortan used to touch you, we know we can't be as good, but just so as we might try to do our best?"_

No wonder she hadn't looked at any of them for days.

All the air feels like it’s been sucked from the room. Kompass feels like there’s too much energy under his skin, overclocked and ready to go and shredding his engine by staying still. He knows there were a lot of thoughts he needed to think, but he couldn't process any of 'em right now.

“She _wasn’t_ ‘scared and helpless’,” Rachet grits out.

“ _Why’d_ you keep saying she wasn’t afraid?” Kompass shouts at him in frustration, because his memory is starting to click into place, how her unknowable faces suddenly seemed to gain meaning.

“Because then _we all_ were!” Rachet yells, spittle flying, pushing up into Kompass’ face, “You don’t get it, you run strong.” Gestures at Austeyr, “he runs tall. If you’re not, or your engine’s running down, the Mechanic he—”

They stare at Rachet. He rocks back on his heels and looks away, mouth working silently with the belated realization of what he’d just admitted.

“It’s not fear,” he finishes, stubbornly.

The silence is very loud.

"...is that why... " Kompass says slowly, all thought wiped from his mind at the implications, "She brought us up to her quarters after runs?" He has to _move_ , and he gets up, pacing. _This was too much_ , the idea that she was afraid even if she didn't want to say so, that she’d somehow protected them from the Organic Mechanic; someone they’d respected as an authority on how to keep their half-lives running as long as they could. Someone that you wouldn’t, shouldn’t, need protection from and—

That none of them realized they were being protected thinking that she’d simply wanted them for Use or suchlike when that was possibly the farthest thing from her mind. Why would she even protect _them_ , they were supposed to be there for _her_ protection; no War Boy’s life or safety was worth than an Imperator’s. The idea threw him as if bodily, off a moving Rig, and he didn’t know where he’d land.

He looks to Rachet, at the one he’d chosen to save from the sandstorm, and tries not to wonder at when it happened that someone hadn’t been fast enough to whisk him away from the Mechanic. Or hadn’t cared enough for the effort. Or had thought that the Organic Mechanic would never do such a thing. Wondered if Furiosa had known or just.. suspected.

"But if she avoided the Mechanic like Joe— I thought she missed him. _You said she missed him!_ " Rachet bursts out, interrupting Kompass' thoughts.

"I believed that," Ace said, obviously trying not to show his shame at having been so wrong. "I think she needed us to believe that. It was the only way she could want to spend time with us," Ace said, "By giving us a reason not to talk to her about Joe."

They all stared at each other silently. Rachet’s eyes in particular flickering, hurt and shocked as the implications hit him.

He was the one that finally broke and stalked towards the hallway. Paused, hand on the stone edge of the exit, "Why weren’t you _right_? The first time. Why did you say… Why didn't she _tell us_?"

"Would you," Ace said, turning to Rachet, "would any of us, have been able to Hear her?"

The younger War Boy’s face crumpled up and he crashed out of the room at the question, quick footsteps echoing down the tunnels.

“Even if _we_ couldn't know, you were supposed to be her Ace," Kompass shoved away from the wall. "An Ace is supposed to be— How could she call you her Ace if she didn't tell you?"

And Ace couldn’t answer him because he didn’t know himself.

Kompass lets out a growl of frustration once he reads it off his face, and whips around to kick at a bucket, sending it across the room. He heads down the tunnels in the opposite direction.

Austeyr walks up to him.

Ace only knows because he watches his feet approach. He braces himself, and then meets Austeyr's eyes with difficulty.

But the younger man just says, “Let’s… let’s get back to the Boss?”

So they do.

* * *

Kompass as he walks blindly down the tunnels kept trying to remember the words to the song he remembers the tune for, he wants to know the shape of the words and to say those words and for it to be loud enough for the woman to hear them, to turn to him and… and something. He doesn’t know what. Listen, maybe. Instead of flinching away from him. He thinks he’d have wanted her to listen.

He wants to talk about how the silvery marks on Furiosa’s belly shouldn’t exist, damage that no war boy was able to prevent, damage that—

That Joe caused.

He is glad Joe is dead if only because he doesn’t know how he would react in front of him.

He remembers that initial conversation he and Rachet’d had, with Joe’s widows, and wants it not to have happened. (“That’s just ‘cause you weren’t _worthy_.”) He cringes at the thought that what he said— he'd needed so badly to believe that the Boss was different, special, hadn't been treated that way. But if the Boss was worthy of being treasured, really treasured (and she _was_ , how could she not be?) and instead hadn't been, then all of Joe’s past breeders, they were all worthy. And if Joe hadn't treated them right, hadn't treasured them—

That meant Kompass had spent his entire life looking up to an Immortan, a— a man, he would have kicked out of the Boss's quarters without a thought. Dragged off of her and none-too-gently put outside her door.

His hands twitch, want to go up and make a V8 symbol, and he clenches them into fists, drops them.

How could it be that Joe had been so good for the Warboys, given them rations and clothing and even a special Aqua Cola tap in the barracks - given them a mission in life, a way to make their half-lives count. How could Joe have been that Immortan, but also the one who had hurt the Boss, hurt his wives?

He wants that conversation with the widows not to have happened. Wants to have it again. Wants to have it better.

All this time they'd worked so hard to be worthy of the Immortan's esteem. And it turns out—

The fixed point they've all been navigating by was never—

("Joe never gave a hand full of sand about making us feel good.")

He wants to have heard the widows properly, but the whole thing claws up his insides and he wants it just to stop. He’s not sure anything he’s been doing the past couple days has been helping at all, if he should have even tried talking to the groups, to the blackthumbs, the greenthumbs, the Fixer, and at the Tenday, and after; he’s not sure if he’s wrecked it for Furiosa or for Ace, or for… for that breeder that might’ve been his sister (and he didn’t even get her _name_ ) for any of them.

He wishes Morsov were here, that Kompass could've gone to Valhalla in his stead. Morsov got to have his chrome death, as historic as anybody could wish for, and never had to know about any of this. Never had to think about how much he'd failed the Imperator, about how Joe— about Joe. Morsov's just feasting in Valhalla (and with everything Joe ever said now in doubt, is Valhalla even— no, he can't think about that).

Morsov woulda done it better. Sprocket, too, he always were great at talkin' to people. Kompass wonders suddenly if Sprocket had known about the Boss. He'd been close to her, maybe even closer than Ace.

He slides his thumb up the ragged upraised scar on his arm, ending on the N at the top, and wedges his thumbnail under a familiar bit of flesh.

(. _..once gave me a compass without North_ )

He digs in.

* * *

When Rachet had found himself thrown from the Rig, he knew that he had to start rolling, that when he hit the ground he’d better let it hit as much of himself as possible because if it only hit one place then that place would break. He knows this like he knows how to tell colors apart, how to aim a lance even with his relatively thin arms, and how two things can fit together to make something new, and how to see where the guns are in a room and where it’s safest to stand, and _Kompass, stand down, the old women have guns, Kompass stop yelling._

It’s not his place to say such things, but he can think it.

He remembered that moment, just three days ago, when they’d entered Furiosa’s room and there were Joe’s prized breeders there and two old women and Furiosa and the Boss looked about to fall over and Rachet knew she was all Kompass had been looking at, because there was nothing else in the room doing the Boss harm except her own stubborn self.

But Rachet had seen both of the older women with guns and the guns had been moving and Rachet had been prepared to throw himself between them because he knew his rank and it was less than Kompass’ and Furiosa’s both, what if a stray bullet hit the Boss as well? Better the bullet settle in himself.

It’s not like he didn’t know how to take one. He’d remembered being in the practice yard and suddenly a sharp and sudden pain in his side, he’d glanced down at where he’d bled and then mentally drew the path the bullet must have taken. Two imperators were by the munitions, one was quickly handing off a gun to a nearby warboy, calling it faulty, the Imperator Prime was berating that same warboy for not taking better precautions, that warboy looking confused and upset.

And then the pain hit.

The next couple days were a haze of hurt and terror and flashes of memory, fingers digging around under his skin and then metal on metal as the bullet were removed, hands pressing down his shoulders and hips as he tried to rear away, a possessive finger knuckling down the curve of his head that he’d wished to flinch from but he couldn’t move and something was making his blinks slow.

Slow.

When he was next lucid, the ceiling of the Blood Shed came into focus, the distant sunlight piercing down blue and cold. There was a line rising up from his arm. A war pup was next to him, he’d stopped patting the blood bag and mouthed the words, _oh, you’re awake._

Like they were afraid to make a sound.

There were some other war boys next to Rachet, calling out to each other and challenging each other to stay awake. The Organic Mechanic was working on them and he was moving through them at a decent pace. There was an older war boy nearby, heavily muscled, looming, watching, and Rachet had never seen one so old before and he thinks this must be the infamous Ace from Furiosa’s crew. That must mean these injured were crew, too.

“You will be finished soon.” A new voice spoke up, higher-pitched for all that it was a command and not a question. And the Imperator herself stepped from the shadows, forehead dark and machine arm shining.

“Always in such a rush,” the Mechanic drawled, mouth sliming, “y’sure you don’t want a tune-up yourself?”

The Imperator had just given him a flat glance and melted back into the shadows as the older war boy stepped in close and somehow increased his looming. The Organic Mechanic glanced at him silently, and sped up.

The moment he was done, Furiosa appeared again with several more war boys as they lifted up their crew and followed her.

“Have a bloodbag sent to my rooms,” she ordered, “I can take care of the rest.”

“Seeing to them yourself? Smart of you, to learn from my ministrations.”

Rachet squirmed at something in the way the Mechanic had said the words. He watched as Furiosa’s jaw grew tight and she turned away from the man in clear dismissal, drawing her crew to her with a tilt of her head as she swept from the healing ledges. But before she’d left, Rachet had met her eyes.

They were deep and unknowable as he’d stared at her, eyes large, and in that moment he’d known he’d wanted to be on her crew. He’d wanted to be taken away from this place as well.

But she’d broken eye contact and simply moved on.

Rachet understood, she could only take what’s hers. That’s why war boys favored pockets, to keep everything precious close, to make sure what’s yours stayed yours.

“Now that we have some time, let’s see about you, then, shall we?” the Mechanic murmured and set his hand familiarly on on his waist.

(And sometimes close was not close enough.)

Rachet comes back to himself, sitting against a wall in the room with the altar, threading the piece of cloth Miss Toast had given him through his grip, over and over. The feel of the weave of the cloth as it passed through his fingers was soothing, grounding, kept him here.

It’d kept him even as he thought about how he’d finally managed to get on the crew and it’d felt like taking the first breath in a very long time. How he could sit with this or that crewmember on the healing ledges and pull them away from there, or be pulled, and no one would question it because Furiosa’s crew was different. How, the very rare times that the Boss herself ended up needing a repair, that he could look at her on the ledge and understand her exactly. (like knowing how a lance would fall, knowing how a bullet will fly, knowing how a nut and a bolt fits together)

But he hadn’t, had he? Furiosa had looked like that coming out of meetings with Joe, and Ace had said— had said that it was because she’d _missed_ him.

And Rachet had clung to that. He’d clung to it, and repeated it and. Left her there, alone on her own ledge, as if she wasn’t crew.

He stared at the fabric as it ran through his fingers and he thinks mutely to himself that it’s a cleaner piece than what Furiosa wore for her top, but it’s clearly the same material.

Fabric designated for Joe’s wives.

He balls it up and sticks it back in a pocket, and tries to find something else to fiddle with, but finds nothing.

He pushes off from the wall.

* * *

Max had drifted off after all the War Boys left the room, but jolted awake at the sound of soft, painful, rasping coughing.

He hadn't expected to sleep, but judging by the light he'd managed a while. He blinked for a moment at being trusted alone with Furiosa, given the way the others were protective of her. Max saw her whole body convulse with the effort of suppressing a cough, so he slid off the ledge and went to her. Her eyes were wild, and her hand fastened on his arm the moment he came into reach.

"Sit up?" he murmured, but she was already pulling on him, trying to lever herself upright. He slid his hands under her upper back and gently helped her into a half-sit, stroking her back to help ease the spasming.

When the awful, wracking coughing finally faded he made to lower her again, but her nails dug into his arm.

"Stay like this?"

She was still struggling to catch her breath after the coughing, but she squeezed his forearm hard, and he positioned his own body so she could lean back against his torso. She made an approving sound, her breathing coming a little easier. He idly stroked at her shoulder slowly feeling her body relax.

Then she fell asleep again. Max shook his head ruefully, because he should have seen that coming. He shifted a little, putting his back against the ledge and settling his leg more comfortably, and resigned himself to the idea he'd be sitting there for a while.


	19. Grigri

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Grigri—a belay device with an auto-locking mechanism to catch a climber's fall._
> 
> Austeyr thought it was better that the Boss slept through tonight, anyway. Both Kompass and Rachet had gone off somewhere, probably holed up in whatever ledges or hidey-holes they favoured these days. Given the way they'd both been vibrating with tension, that was probably for the best. The conversation with Ace had really rattled them all.

_ "Hey, Max is off the ledge. Bet he didn't plan to be sleeping there. Ace, do you want to sit with her? ...okay, then I will." _

Max made an inquiring sound at the light jostling of bodies settling in. Somebody made comforting humming sounds, and there was a warm weight against him with the soft, slow rhythm of breathing. And that was important, the breathing, but his subconscious found nothing alarming, no reason to wake, and so and he sank into deeper sleep again. 

* * *

It wasn't late in the evening, but none of them had gotten much sleep, so Austeyr had settled in next to the Wastelander, his forehead pressed against the Boss' forearm. He'd been surprised to see the man on the mattress, but pleased - it got cold at night, and Aus liked to have everybody close. If the man was ready to join them all, Aus wasn't going to tell him to get back on the ledge. 

At some point the man tapped him on the arm, and Austeyr looked up to see him look... twitchy, and restless. The Boss was still asleep, leaned against him, and Aus sat up. 

"Want me to take her?" he breathed. The Boss looked like she was breathing easier for being a bit more upright, but the Wastelander clearly needed to move. 

He grunted, and Austeyr positioned himself next to him so they could gently transfer Furiosa, Max's hand cupped behind her head to support it. Austeyr had known the man cared about her, had wanted to make extra sure Austeyr himself meant her well, but seeing this, the gentleness in this half-feral man, was still a surprise. 

"Mmm?" the Boss hummed, not really waking, and Max made a soothing little hum, leaned in to brush a kiss against her forehead and then twitched back, seemed surprised at his own actions. 

"We've got you, Boss, no need to wake up," Aus soothed. 

Max muttered something about catching up with the sisters, and left. 

Austeyr thought it was better that the Boss slept through tonight, anyway. Both Kompass and Rachet had gone off somewhere, probably holed up in whatever ledges or hidey-holes they favoured these days. Given the way they'd both been vibrating with tension, that was probably for the best. The conversation with Ace had really rattled them all. 

Ace had come in long enough to reassure the Boss was all right, then left to come back an hour or so later. He'd settled down on a cushion on the other side of the room, an unusual amount of space between the Boss and himself

* * *

Kompass wedged himself deep into the alcove. He'd needed to be far away, been halfway to the barracks, but had gotten restless when he'd gone down too many levels, feeling like he needed to stay - well, near the Boss. Not easily findable, but within earshot if there should be shouting, if anybody should try to— if she should be attacked. 

His head was pounding, and he felt like you did when waking up from Nightfevers, hot and cold and light in the head, your lips numb, like everything was  _ wrong _ . Only waking up from Nightfevers meant waking up to a world that was  _ right _ .

Nothing was right, now. He didn't know even where to start, random snippets of thoughts kept floating up in his mind. 

_ "Did she tell you that? That she loved Joe? That he was gentle?" _

Kompass flinched all over again at the memory of the redhead's voice, because all he'd been able to think was 'I  _ wanted  _ him to have been'. He couldn't imagine who'd want to be cruel to the Boss; and the man he'd looked up to, saluted, revered, would have treasured her. The man who’d he’d tried to be worthy of should have seen her worth. His stomach roiled all over again with the memory of the faces of the women. 

_ "And what do you think that 'treasuring'  _ _**means** _ _ , huh? He forced us.  _ _**Hurt** _ _ us." _

It was Kompass' role to make sure new crew didn't make the Boss uncomfortable. It had always taken time before she gave Ace or Kompass the nod that they'd be welcome in her quarters, and once they were, more time before she would accept them near her. They were not to touch her before she reached for them, not to lay on her, not to do any of the things they might do with the breeders. He'd always thought of it in terms of respect - the Boss was not there for their Use, it was the other way around, and he'd enforced that for her like he would have enforced saluting the V8. Pulled guys away when they got too eager, grasped at her, touched her too roughly, pinned her with their weight. 

“ _The Vault hurt. He made us bleed...”_

Now he remembered the frozen look when one new guy had caged her in with his body and his arms, grazed her breast with his teeth. She hadn't been offended, he realizes now —  she'd been  _ afraid _ , eyes darting at them all as if they would take that guy’s side, and once Kompass had gotten rid of him she'd curled up between Ace and him and just breathed quietly for a long time. At the time they'd thought she was too angry to want anything from them that night. 

“ _ Joe doesn’t stop _ .”

She'd needed that protection from him  _ against Joe _ . She hadn't been treasured, gentled, honoured. She'd needed someone to watch over her, take her side, and make sure she was all right and Kompass  _ hadn't been there _ . What is a Warboy’s role but to throw himself in-between their Imperator and harm? To sacrifice themselves for something bigger than each individual, or someone greater than themselves, someone a higher level, step, tier. Pedestal.

The idea that he hadn't, that it had been pain and fear, that he hadn't shielded her— even though part of him knew he couldn't possibly have — and that she hadn't even been free of that even when she'd no longer been a Wife.

“ _You don’t get it, you run strong, you run tall. If you’re not, or your engine’s running down, the Mechanic he—”_

And not only the Boss, but others too, apparently; how had he not known about Organic? How had he watched over her, multiple times even, as she woke up in the Blood Shed, and not understood? He'd thought she was remembering losing her arm, or losing the Immortan's child. On her orders even, he'd made sure none of their crew was ever alone with Organic.  _ How  _ could he not have seen that Rachet, Sprocket, Sump and some of the others were in danger there? How could he have failed to protect them?

He feels like he’d missed a catch when someone’s reaching, turned a second too slow. Been in the right place but hadn't understood his purpose there, like a greenhand crew member with an arm full of lances acting like a lookout. 

He shouldn’t have had even the presumption to think that he could lead a Tenday, must have made such a mess of it, couldn’t even figure out how foolish he must have looked. 

He startled as he heard light footsteps come up. One of the women Furiosa had brought back from the desert. Janey. 

Women had always been either breeders or milkers or wretched, with the Boss in a category all of her own. Kompass still wasn't sure where Janey and Miss Gale belonged. She was more like Ace than like any woman he'd ever met, giving commands that you followed before you'd even thought about it. 

She sat down in the wide windowsill a couple metres away, and Kompass clenched his teeth, because she had to know he was there, and anyone else would have left him to it. He knew he looked angry even if he wasn’t trying. He hadn't purposely set out to intimidate the widows the day before, but there was a satisfaction in being given a wide berth, especially when his head felt as full as it did now. 

" _ What _ ," he ground out.

She gave him a raised-brows look. 

He shoved out of his alcove and in her direction, hoping to send her running like he might have done with a pup, but she didn't budge. When he'd come to a halt, just out of arms reach, she turned her eyes back to the open Wasteland visible out of the barred window, as if he was no threat at all. 

"You ever feel closed in, here?"

"Huh?"

"Spent the past four thousand days in the desert. All this rock, it just ain't right."

"So why come here?"

She shrugged, pulling her legs up until she was sideway in the window ledge. Pulled out a whetstone, showed it to him to indicate what she was about to do, then pulled out a knife to work on. 

"Our Furiosa came back, needed our help."

Kompass blinked at her. 

" _ Your  _ Furiosa? And who are you to claim her?"

"Her people, lad. The Vuvalini. Knew her when she was a little hellion on a sandbike." 

Kompass was curious about this unknown piece of the Boss despite himself. 

"I didn't know she had people."

"Oh yeah. Used to have a Clan in the Green Place, mothers, sisters, a dad, too. Got kidnapped not long after she was Initiated. They razed our harvests and chopped our trees and kidnapped our girls."

"Kid..napped?" he repeated the unfamiliar word. 

"People are not things, lad. You can't steal people."

"Oh."

She'd been taken by Warboys. To be a Wife. Taken from a green place where there'd been trees and water. Not a better life, not like some of the Wretched who gave their daughters in the hope they'd lead a better life. Not an honour, as he'd always thought. Not to be Treasured and Protected by Joe, lavished with his welcome attentions. 

She'd been taken by Warboys, to be hurt and afraid and— he remembered the silvery lines on her stomach, the scars, he remembered the new Wife they'd taken to the Citadel, he remembered watching the Boss walk her to the lift platform, her face grim and her hand on the girl's arm and he mostly remembered the long dark hair in the little ropes but her skin— was that— she looked different with the hair cut off but was that the Widow called Toast —  _ no wonder the Widows looked at them with suspicion _ . 

“ _Every moment in there is more cold and more dark and more afraid…”_

The Boss had had to lead a new girl through the same— it must have been a nightmare - experience what she herself must have experienced all those years ago, knowing what was coming — Ace and Sprocket had slept in her quarters that night, and even though there weren't generally secrets between crew, what one knew they all needed to know, they'd refused to speak of it. 

“ __Don’t hassle the boss right now. “  
“ __Eh?”  
“ _She’s feeling poorly, after delivering the new Wife.”  
_ “ __Ah, missing him again?”

How had he not seen that? Everywhere he turned was a new slide into horror at the extend of how wrong they'd been, how wrong  _ he _ 'd been. Like up was down and Aqua Cola was sand and Treasuring was pain and blood. 

He snapped to attention when the woman - Janey, her name was Janey - held out a metal flask to him.

"Lot to think about, eh? Here, try some."

He'd expected the weird, strong tea he'd seen them drink before, but the scent of it went straight up his nose, and she chuckled. He took a cautious sip and almost startled. It was nothing like the harsh guzzoline-flavoured rotgut the Warboys made for themselves. It tasted smooth and green, and he was oddly reminded of that tiny sip of sweet Valhalla flavoured liquor Furiosa had shared with her crew years ago. Strange because the taste was nothing alike. 

"You did good, with the ceremony," she said, gaze to the outside. "I think people needed… needed that."

Kompass hummed noncommittally, and shifted. Ran his eyes along the walls to their sides. 

"Tried to do it… as good as the Immortan woulda done," he grunted. 

She was silent for a while, and he took another small sip. 

"You think that's how ole Joe would've done it?"

Kompass looked down at the flask in his hand. Would the Immortan have welcomed the women? Let them Remember? It had seemed like the best option at the time. Maybe he'd been wrong? He normally looked to Ace when he hesitated, but after Ace had been so wrong about the Boss, had let them all be so wrong, he wasn't confident about the man's judgement anymore than he was about his own. 

"How well did you know Joe?" Janey asked, drawing him up from his thoughts. 

"Oh,  like crew. He spoke to us a lot." 

She moved as in surprise. 

"Really? What did he say?"

"That we were his half-life Warboys… that he made us in his image… I remember a few times he told us stories, about how he'd come to be Immortan," Kompass said. "That we would ride with him, and McFeast with him, on the highways of Valhalla."

It was strange, trying to think of it like this he felt like he was forgetting things. He knew the Immortan better than that, he was certain of it. 

"But you didn't know him the way you know your crewmates?"

But he  _ did _ , did he not? There were all these things he just knew. That the Immortan would treasure his Wives, not hurt them. Give everybody the role that best fit them, so they could be Useful to the Citadel. Was merciful to the Wretched, even though they didn't deserve it. Gave everybody exactly what they needed; no more, but also no less. 

He just couldn't remember how he'd come to know them. 

"Do you really think Joe would have let the women speak, today?"

His mouth was already opening to say yes but then he remembered how Joe would parade his wives at the balcony and then quickly move them away. Remembered the hard set of Furiosa’s jaw after she came back from meetings with him. Kompass slowly shook his head. No, maybe…

Maybe the Immortan wouldn't have. But maybe he should have?

They were both silent for what felt like a long time. 

"I'm glad she had you," Janey said, eyes on the Wasteland outside. "Not glad she got taken, never. But if that did have to happen, I'm glad she found you lads. It's good that she had people."

Kompass gave back the flask, worrying the strange liquor was making his sight blurry. 

His throat worked, torn between keeping everything safely inside his head and making this woman understand how wrong she was. 

"Doesn't seem like it was good," he finally managed. "We just fucked up."

"Did you actually get it wrong? Or did you get it right but for the wrong reasons?"

"Mediocre," he muttered, because that sounded a lot like 'You tried' and that was never good enough.

Kompass pictured her, the first time he'd come face to face. It had been in the Pits, before he got picked for the War Rig crew under Imperator Xe. She'd been a scout at the time, a permanent scowl under her war paint, something unholy in her eyes, something feral. He remembered thinking her name fit her well. The Warboys had given her a wide berth, and it was only now that he wondered if that hadn't been the point. 

When they faced off against each other, she'd fought with a viciousness that he hadn't been prepared for, nearly taking off his head before he could get his bearings in the fight. 

Kompass had been used to good-natured scuffles and sparring, the occasional harder scrap in the Pits. Fighting had never been difficult for him; nobody'd ever been vicious with him, perhaps for fear of getting his anger in return. But he hadn't been ready for Furiosa's level of intensity, the way she'd given him no breathing room, taken any advantage and pushed it, had had him scrambling to keep up with her speed. She fought like her back was against the wall and there was no one coming to relieve her. The screaming and chanting from the spectators -  _ Shred her! Shred her! _ \- had maybe proven her right in that. 

He hadn't completely embarrassed himself, taken her to the ground and let his heavier weight help control her, held his own for a while, but once she got her legs braced and metal fingers around his throat it had been over. 

The crowd that had been screaming for him to shred her just moments ago had roared her name in approval as she stood victorious, something wild and angry in her eyes as she warily watched if he'd come back at her. 

She hadn't been close to anybody before she'd been given the War Rig, and remembering that moment, he didn't wonder why. Something had changed for her, when she'd gotten the Rig, when she'd gotten the team. He couldn't remember when he'd last seen that look in her eyes, as if at any moment she was ready to chrome herself and take you down with her. She'd changed. Seemed steadier, calmer. Happier? Maybe?

At least, that's what he'd thought until she decided to sacrifice them all to her suicidal escape plans. 

" ‘Mediocre’? Isn't that for Furiosa to decide?"

He grunted noncommittally. 

"I certainly didn't expect Warboys to take such good care of her," she continued. "It's been a relief to know you lads are lookin' after her. I’ve seen the way you Boys hover."

"That's just what crew does," he dismissed. "Be there for the Imperator. Anything they need; if a bullet comes, you _ take _ it for her."

"Yeah, I heard about that," she said softly, concern in her eyes. "That's just how it works with an Imperator's crew, is it?"

Kompass glanced at her, an uneasy feeling in his stomach.  _ This again, _ they're worried about the crew hurting Furiosa. 

"We don't do anything she doesn't want us to." He shifted, because that wasn't  _ quite  _ true, they made her drink milk and take medicine and stay under blankets when she wanted to fling them off. 

"I believe you," Janey nodded. "I'm not worried about that."

_ She wasn't?  _ Kompass gave his head a small shake of confusion. 

"Is an Imperator the only one who gets to say no?"

Kompass blinks, because how does this woman think being on a crew  _ works?  _ You follow orders, or you might as well go live with the Wretched. 

"We're… her _crew_. We follow orders."

Her face does something complicated, as if that's not the answer she was hoping for, and he's so confused. “You don’t get to refuse anything? Even in her quarters? Anything at all?”

"Oh, you mean  _ sexing _ ," it dawns on him suddenly. 

She nods. "You follow orders?"

"Boss always said 'Only if you want to'. There is.. there  _ was _ .. crew who didn't want to at all. Or didn’t like certain things," Kompass shrugged, “she'd just let each do however much they want.”

The woman nodded, face clearing up, and Kompass was relieved he'd managed to say what she'd wanted to hear. He was still confused why it was so important. The Boss always listened when they had something important to say. 

_ "Would you," Ace said, turning to Rachet, "would any of us, have been able to Hear her?" _

They'd taken care of her, tried their best, but apparently not good enough to know what she hadn't been able to tell them. 

The image of her face above him came to him, her naked body, the first time she'd let anyone inside of her, a look he'd thought was hesitation about his worthiness and now... and now recognised as  _ fear _ . The way she'd needed to have Ace and Boker make sure he wouldn't move, would let her go at whatever pace she wanted— could stand— the way she'd trembled. 

She hadn't come, and he hadn't understood that, why do it if it didn't feel good for her? They'd all of them been plenty willing to do the things she enjoyed until she was exhausted. But she'd made satisfied sounds anyway, and she'd curled up against his side after, her face hidden into his shoulder and her hand petting his chest as if to thank him. Had that been— had she never before— what if that had been the first time she had ever  _ wanted  _ a prick inside of her? 

He couldn't even _ think  _ about the honour of being chosen for it.

Janey shifted, and Kompass startled to attention, uncomfortably aware of what he'd just been thinking about. He hoped his paint was still thick enough to hide the sudden warmth in his face. 

“You look to me like someone who’s been tearing himself up about what was in his head while his hands were doing the right things," she said. 

He grunted noncommittally. 

"Why don't you go see what she thinks? If she blames you for not knowing what she couldn't tell you?" 

Kompass suddenly wasn't sure who was with the Boss. Austeyr had gone back to her quarters, hadn't he? Was the Wastelander there too? He should go check on her. 

"I gotta—" he gestured 'away' and she nodded. 

"Thanks for the—" he gestured at the flask, and walked away. 

* * *

There was an odd atmosphere in the Boss' quarters, and for the first time since it had all happened Kompass considered heading down to the barracks to sleep in his own chilly, damp alcove. On the mattress was Austeyr, his back against the wall and with Furiosa leaning against him, slumbering. She'd been needing to cough a lot, and being a bit more upright seemed to help her. 

On the other side of the room was the Ace, cleaning weapons with rote, mindless motions, eyes unseeing. 

Kompass hesitated for a long moment, and then kicked off his boots and crawled onto the mattress. Went over to Austeyr and Furiosa and nestled in on his side alongside her, his head pillowed on Austeyr's tucked up shin, his forehead pressed against the outside of her thigh and one hand curled over her knee. Austeyr patted his shoulder in greeting. 

Furiosa hummed and her hand came down to rest on his head, idly stroking at the fuzz he hadn't shaved in days. He pressed his face against the skin just under the seam of her loose sleep shorts and took what felt like his first real breath all day. 

  


* * *

* * *

When Rachet pushed from the wall and walked around the altar, he found himself taken aback by a woman, desert covered and in desert colored clothing, picking up the stray milk bottles left from earlier that Tenday. He ducked back behind the altar and watched her for awhile, but he couldn’t make sense of it. She were picking up bottles, sloshing them clean with a bit of aqua cola and carefully pouring the cleaning water into a bucket. The bottles went into baskets. 

Rachet glanced around the room nervously and with a start realized there were another Wretched, in a different shadow of the room, doing the same.

“Y’done staring yet?” That women spoke up behind him, and Rachet jumped, spun, backed up only to nearly crash into the Altar and he caught himself just in time.

“I…” He breathed in and oriented himself, “what are you doing? Don’t those bottles go back to Stuffs and the storage?”

“Yeah,” the woman stared at him, “who do you think does all that?”

“ The Wre— but you’re not allowed in the Citadel!” Rachet looked around quickly, as he sensed movement, “...’weren’t’ allowed, I mean  _ now  _ you are, I mean.”

“Calm, boy,” the other woman said, not looking up from her work.

“I’m Desperate,” the first woman said.

“I’m… sorry?” Rachet didn’t know what to do with that, did she want some more aqua cola? “There’s taps nearby? I can help get—”

She started laughing, “No, you’re hearing wrong: I’m Desperate, that’s my name.” 

“I’m…... sorry?” Rachet thought that was even more confusing honestly, Warboy names were usually chosen for strength, for things that are chrome or would take you there. What advantage would it be to be named as such as Desperate? “Ey, can I call you Des?”

The woman blinked and thought about it, “Could fit. I’ll try it on some and see.” She walked past him finally, a small basket of bottles at her hip and dropped off the containers with another two.

Rachet followed, curious, then bent and handed her a stray milkbottle, “So you gather the bottles in trade with Stuffs?”

“It’s not like Warboys bother to pick up after themselves.” Des sniffed, but nodded to him in thanks as she took the container from him and went back to her bucket, picking it up to go towards more things to clean. 

He needed to get back to the Boss, but his insides squirmed uneasily at the thought. At being unable to have seen he'd left her on her ledge, with Joe. The ball of fabric sat heavy in his pocket. 

He wasn't sure how she would look at him now, if she even would at all. 

Rachet glanced around and thought the water in Des’ bucket was getting kinda high, he automatically moved towards it to pick it up but her hand snapped out to push his hand away.

“Hey! Didn’t say you could go takin’ that!”

“I just wanted to help empty it out! Use it for washing down the ledges?”

She shoved him away harder, “ ‘Empty it out’?!”

“Hey! Why did you—!”

“Warboy.” A voice snapped, and it was that first woman, and when she stepped forward the moonlight hit her and Rachet thought it was that same woman - Deka - that he’d met in the council. She was holding up a bottle. “Stand down. What do you see?”

Rachet hunched his shoulders and curled up his fists, “An empty bottle.” It was taking a lot to hold back a retort but retorts hadn’t helped earlier today during the Remembering, and didn’t help when they talked with Ace after. He didn’t want to cause more trouble, but he was feeling mullish and awkward and confused. Those were the milk bottles that they’d begged and bartered for each Tenday, and they used all of it even with the breeders feedin' their pups, because there was no saving it, or it'd go bad. (because there was never enough). Maybe they’d needed to have given more for the pups or something, but the Warboys did the best they could.

He braced against being wrong, again. 

“Look closer though.” And she tipped the bottle in the light, and a drop of milk rolled across the bottom. 

“A… milk bottle?” He tried. 

She just stared at him and stuck the bottle closer to his face.

“...with a drop left?”

“Nutrients,” Deka nodded. “Just a bit, but even that helps when you have nothing. The milkwater will go to those most needful, whose piss is orange, and then the rest is traded.”

Rachet watched her tip a bit of aqua-cola into the bottle, swirl it around, and then carefully preserve the wash. He’d seen nothing in that bottle and yet.

The Wretched were surviving off it. The ‘empties’ that Warboys leave carelessly behind, that they then trade for again from Stuffs. 

“ Have the Wretched always done this?” At their nod, Rachet found himself saying, distressed, “I’ve never  _ seen _ you.”

“We’ve always been here in the crevices. People don’t like lookin’ at us, seeing us near their spaces,” Deka shrugged, “You take to blending in, because that’s how you survive. That’s what we’re all tryin’ to do in the end, right?”

“ And sometimes,” Desperate said, and in that moment she’d shed her new name, eyes intense and feral with memories, “Sometimes you’d do  _ anythin’ _ not to just blend in, but to rise.”

He remembered how much harder it had been before he got onto Furiosa's crew. Before there were people who looked out for him, who didn't tell him to stop being so jittery, so fiddly with things, who didn't mind explaining if he didn't get something as fast as the others and who liked him without irritation those times he did it faster. All Warboys knew that their lot was to survive long enough to blaze out chrome; it was hard and it hurt, but you were supposed to stay silent about it and strong. There was that secret sense though, that it should have been easier; that something wasn’t...quite right. That they should have had more. It was difficult being cold, and to live with water addiction and that tight crawl in your stomach, and it was easy to secretly think themselves brave for bearing it without complaint.

And yet these Wretched had even  _ less _ , and while Rachet may have known it distantly, it was another thing to see them treasuring what any Warboy would consider washwater.

Deka looked at him for a long moment. “Sometimes the little things go far. Things, people, you don’t think to notice.”

Rachet rubbed his thumb against his fingers and shifted his weight from foot to foot. His fingers itched to do something, to make something, to  _ fix _ something. 

“You really want to help out, don’t you?” Deka murmured, eyes thoughtful.

Rachet nodded quickly, something that he could just…  _ do _ , and get right.

She sat down by a bucket and waved him off to fetch her the strays, bottles that have been missed, and Rachet felt oddly glad for it, even if Deka had him darting all over the large room, her eyes sharper in the darkness than his. There weren’t many left, but he found himself more focused after he’d dropped the last of it off.

“Thank you,” Deka said, and Des gave him a quick smile up from her own work, and Rachet’s shoulders relaxed with it. “Think you can answer something for me though?”

“Yeah?”

“You really wanted to help us, or you just avoiding something that needs seeing to?”

He took a step backwards. “I…  _ how _ _?_ ”  _ did she know? _

“How to see to it? Like I said, sometimes the little things go far,” she replied, which ignored his question for his actual question.

"Don't know how to help.. the other thing." Rachet said quietly, “Don’t even what a little thing could be.”

"Maybe start with just being there?" She didn’t look at him, and Rachet breathed a little easier with being given the space, “Could help just by sitting with the problem a little, until it comes to you.”

“ I… yeah.” Maybe that would be okay? He nodded, and got up to leave.

Paused.

Then turned back, embarrassed, “Did you want me to help you take—”

Des just laughed while Deka shoo’ed him away irritably, “We can carry these things just fine on our own.”

Rachet nodded again, and set his jaw and his shoulders, heading back even though each step felt like he was being torn multiple ways.

* * *

Austeyr smiled as Rachet settled in. He's been worried, this evening, about where they all were. They'd been so upset. Hell, _he_ was upset, still, with new knowledge and his own role in everything. 

He idly stroked his fingertips over the fuzz at Furiosa's temple. She was breathing clear, her body a warm, heavy weight against his chest. Kompass was still curled against her, alternately dozing and sulking.

Ace was on the other side of the room and that worried Austeyr, especially with the way the man was cleaning his M79 grenade launcher for what Austeyr was quite sure was the fourth time today. 

Furiosa had woken up a little at one point and mumbled Ace’s name, and where before Ace would already have been there, reassuring her, this time he'd just said "I'm here, Boss," and continued cleaning the M79. 

Rachet looked around furtively as he settled in, twitchy and uneasy in his skin like he was expecting a scolding but wasn't sure for what or where it would come from. He pulled his knees up to his chest and folded his arms around them, looking small and worried. 

Austeyr gave him a small smile. He wished Spool were here, his driver was always good for a chat. Or Morsov; he might know how to handle Ace in this mood. But Spool and Morsov and the others were in Valhalla, and those who remained were all together. For now, that had to be enough. 


	20. Dynamic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Dynamic—Climbing rope that elongates or stretches to absorb the impact of a fall. Opposite of static. Also, a climbing move in which the climber lunges or leaps to the next hold. Also called a "dyno move"._

"How are things? The bar on the door make everybody feel better?" Toast asked Many, the representative from the Breeder quarters. It was late, and Cheedo kept yawning despite herself and she saw how everybody seemed exhausted after everything that had happened in the day, but none of their eyes seemed to drag with sleep. It felt like there was too much to do. They were holding another Council after checking in to see everyone's settled safe.

"Better ‘n the old guards," Many chuckled, settling down in a low chair carefully, her belly large and child-full. She accepted with a grateful nod a cup of water from Dag, who was passing it around to everyone in the circle as if it were tea. "Access t’us used to be tightly controlled - visitin’ us was a reward, y’see. Only when a crew'd done well."

"Well, without the enforcers to keep control, I'm glad we've been able to give you some other discouragement options." Toast nodded, Cheedo was glad that her sister had the idea and worked out both how to wedge the bar proper and lever it out easy.

"Least we can do until everybody has decided where they want to go," Capable said.

“ ‘Go’ ?” Many’s voice suddenly rose in alarm and suspicion. Cheedo had an awful feeling she might know where this was headed, but felt torn.

“Yes, leave the breeding quarters?” Toast asked.

"Y'want us to stop havin' pups? Won't you run out of Warboys?"

They stared at each other uncomprehendingly, and Gale spoke up, "We want you to stop bein' ‘breeders’.”

Many sat up, a protective hand on her rounded belly. “Now wait just a minute, when you said you’d be making changes ya’ll said nothing about turnin’ us out with the Wretched!” She spat.

“The Wretched deserves to have respect as well,” Cheedo piped up with newfound steel, “They don’t deserve that tone.” Except she can see Many’s fears and she, too, knew what it’s like to cling to comfort and safety.

“And _we_ deserve to be kicked out to Below?!”

“We said nothing about your being kicked out!” Toast frowned.

Many opened her mouth but Gale held up both hands, “If you want to take somebody to your bed, somebody you like, an' have a baby - that's different. The thing is, we’re not forcing you to have them as the price for shelter."

Cheedo sighed with relief that someone had the words for it; she didn’t want this fight between women who would be her sisters, who would be, perhaps, family.

"Huh." Many clearly needed a moment to work that through. "So you're not sending us back down?"

"To the Wretched? No!" Capable said quickly. "Nobody is getting turned out, whether you want to keep having babies or not.And we’re trying to find room and role in the towers for everybody."

"Right. Good. Reckon there's some girls who'll want t’learn weapons or cars or planting. Wouldn't mind working in th’gardens, myself." 

This made the Dag perk up and it was true, she needed the help. There were so many more they’d planned on feeding, Cheedo mused, and she’d wanted to give something extra to the War Pups who’d kept running around for her and listening where she couldn’t.

"All right, we can start finding new places for people tomorrow." Gale nodded.

"I'd like that. Weren't all bad though, you know," Many said. “Most of us come from—" she gestured to the window and down. "Havin’ a place outta the sun, enough food 'n Aqua Cola - worth it t’have pups for th’Immortan."

"Worth it to have hordes or Warboys come in to rape you?" Dag asked, her voice strained.

Many stared at her hard for a moment, “You’ve never truly starved before, have you? Never had to drink yer own piss until it turned too orange to drink.” She tsked, “If it was just one man? And he protected you from the other men and helped you carry your home for you?”

The sisters stared at her in incomprehension. Cheedo made a face at the idea of drinking piss.

“I had one. A man. Out in the Wastes,” Many said simply, “all told it’s better up here. A little bit of choice on when and who it is. Don't have t’see your babies starve or bleed outta ya because you were starvin’. Get to raise your babies, even if they get taken away when they get Named. Leastways they get more than a miserable month in the dust."

Dag stared at her with a conflicted twist on her face, and Toast’s jaw twitched from how hard she’s clenching it.

"And th’ breeding weren't so often, Corpus made sure of that. Most of the time it was just us and th’ babies in our own special quarters, nobody needin' to be hungry or thirsty. War Boys come and take them every Tenday, never much liked that, but ‘sides from that, we get to keep them until they're Named and Painted."

"They don't have names before then…?" Capable asked gently.

Many scowled.

"Of course they do. They have _our_ names. Story names. My oldest is Berai, the next Damarwulan. Then the Warboys take 'em from us and paint 'em white and call them things like Sump and Wrench." She sounded bitter.

"How is it decided when they're old enough?" Gale asked.

"When they can lift 'n hold th’ heavy wheel. They make 'em try every Tenday. Berai's been practicing with Aqua-Cola containers," she sighed. "Won't be long now till they take him from me."

"They won't," Capable said firmly. "Not like they used to.”

“They’ll fight you on that.”

"Probably," Toast agreed. "Worth fighting for though."

“Maybe not if we couch it right.” Capable insisted, “Maybe they'll take him for training, but they won't paint him up so you don't recognize him anymore, and we want to make it so he can at least visit you."

Many's eyes widened, and she nodded as she thought it over.

"How can you not hate the Warboys for doing that to you and your children?" Dag asked.

“Well, some of us do more’n’ me, you heard’em today. Others, well, they's just doing as the Immortan wishes, and we have to breed pups for the Immortan. How else would we get full bellies?" Many shrugged and took a sip of water. "An' they spared us some, too. The Imperators had access to us all the time not just occasionally like crew. Used to come and—" she clenched her jaw, then shook her head. "Some of 'em tired themselves out on their crew."

The listening women glanced at each other.

Dag thought about the injured Warboy who had quietly come up to her after the Tenday ceremony. He'd been tall, broad shouldered with fine eyes and a fine nose and lumps dotting his side among wrench scars. She'd had to fight not to take a reflexive step back when he leaned over on his crutch and bent close to her.

“You should keep sharing your stories.” He’d whispered. And his voice had shifted softer, “Perhaps one day it’ll— I can— I'll want to share mine.”

Dag had peered at him, at his apparently uninjured chest, at the lack of bandages or splints on his legs, at a certain tightness around his eyes and his mouth. Dag’d recognized that careful, ginger way of moving, recognized those eyes, that mouth, had seen them on the faces of her sisters after Joe'd left them. But this Warboy, he was pretty but he looked so strong that she didn’t know what to do with the sheer idea of it, despite how: “I’d always _did_ wonder if they—”

She had cut herself off.

Because even though the Dag is the one who said things that other people wouldn’t, she had taken pause at the suddenly wounded and hunted look on the warboy’s face, at the hand he’d reflexively threw up as if to ward her words.

Suddenly she’d been even more awkward, and small, and not knowing what to do with her sharp eyes and sharp elbows and sharp voice. They both shifted restlessly for a moment, looking at each other, not knowing what words to share between them that wouldn’t cause hurt.

He'd finally turned to Cheedo and asked, “Of the Imperators on the Gigahorse, y’say they’ve all died?”

“As far as we’ve seen.” Cheedo had replied, looking between them, back and forth.

“Good.” He'd nodded stiffly, one hand white-knuckled on the crutch, looking wobbly. “That’s— that’s… good.”

Dag looked at Cheedo now, in this circle of women, and reached out for her hand, because she herself felt wobbly at the memory. She took comfort in the fact that her hand was still met, despite her sharp edges.

"Most of the boys weren't cruel when they bred us." Many continued blithely. "We had some control, could match up girls with Warboys. Could usually give the rough ones t’girls who could take 'em.”

Cheedo gave Dag a queasy look.

“Found ways t’calm Boys down some before it got to breedin', talking a while or rubbing their shoulders, sort of thing. We have each other, we get by all right."

"You shouldn't have had to," Dag hissed, in the comfort of being right in this, at least."None of you should have been treated like _things!_ "

"We’re _breeders_ ," Many argued hotly, "Warboys gotta do war and Breeders gotta be bred. We're all tools of the Immortan, full-fillin' our purpose. Better a working spanner than scrap. Better a breeder than _dyin_ ' out there."

The sisters exchanged looks, trying not to interrupt. Toast and Dag stared at each other and nodded in stubborn agreement but Cheedo looked away even as she tightened her fingers.

“We can teach you better,” Dag said with head tilted up and chin sharp, “Miss Giddy’s lost to the winds but we’ve been taught by her. We can teach you.”

“We can loan you books,” Toast added, “They’ll help you see—”

They were interrupted by laughter. “Girls, d’you think any of us can make use of those Old World things even if we had ‘em?”

Toast closed her mouth slowly.

“We can teach you how to read,” Dag continued stubbornly, “It’s important to—”

“Know the words that dead white men have pressed into dead bleached trees?” Many challenged. “Know their white-painted histories? What about _our_ stories? Do they matter to you?”

“Of course your stories do but—”

“Then do your books know of the ‘ _The land’s slipping away; Where shall man find an abiding-place?_ ’ Do y’know ‘ _Real things in the darkness seem no realer than dreams_ ’ or of ‘ _The seven sisters and the man named Wurrunnah_ ’ ?” Many glared at them until their mouths shut, “We’ve breeders sung the stories to each other for thousands of days beyond your memory, songs and words that’ve survived since the death of the world. _Don’t try t’tell us that we know nothing_.”

Cheedo knew the sing-song of a person reciting a loved text like she knows her sisters’ voices; they are one and the same. She heard the same notes of love in Many’s voice reciting the passages and they were, truly, none, of them in any of the books the sisters’ve learned from. She found herself wishing for the rest of these stories even as her face burned from her presumptions, and when she tilted her face at Dag, the blond was flushed too, ruddy dots on her cheekbones and mouth tight, eyes averted.

Many seemed to read their faces, and sighed, slashing her hand through the air as if to wipe things away, "Besides, Furiosa, she made things better, when she made Imperator. Told her boys to be kind with us. Told us to tell her if they weren't. Few times we did, they never came to us again. Pretty sure she ended the son of the Imperator Prime."

There’d been a small uproar in the upper tiers as Prime's son had gone missing, Toast remembered, but nothing had come from it. The boy had been known to sneak the ferments since young, and no one had really felt able to speak up and stop him; not wanting to get in Prime’s crosshairs.

"Any way, most of us didn't mind getting a visit from her crew." She had a faraway look in her eyes for a few moments, then shook herself and chuckled. "She had this lancer, Guzzer, I took a shine to him. He'd come to me all painted up fresh, wouldn't look at anyone else. Said my name. Made me feel special. Made strong pups, too, and sweet-natured as can be. Damarwulan is one of his, and the next two too." She paused, and when she continued she sounded like she felt she was blaspheming. "Sad Guzzer's gone to Valhalla, I wouldn't have minded making another pup with him. They say it was the chromest death he could've wished for though."

Capable hummed in sympathy and Cheedo met her eyes. They hadn't expected that these kinds of bonds would have formed, but if nobody understood that the situation they'd been put in wasn't right, there wasn't a lot of blame going around, apparently.

"There was a lotta talk about her takin' her crew up to her quarters, but we'd known for a while. Some point they started askin' us what we liked, what felt good. Tryin' things with us, you know? Tryin' to learn for her."

Cheedo squirmed a little, remembering the tacit admission the bigger of the two Warboys the day before. How could Furiosa possibly want— 'her crew' meant not just _one._ All Cheedo could picture was a mass of white-painted bodies covering Furiosa. How could she stand it? Had she truly wanted so many hands on her or had it been… a way to control them? Like Angharad had sometimes smiled at Joe and told him she'd missed him, so she could steer him away from any of the others, control what he would do that night? Like Dag had, to keep him from touching Cheedo?

But she'd seen Furiosa curled up with her crew, had seen her reach for them. It must have been different. Maybe not so bad as Joe? That was confusing because Joe had always said that if they displeased him, he'd give them to his Boys and then they'd learn how good he was to them. That he was the only thing keeping them safe and treasured, that they should be grateful for his protection. 

" _If we wanted to make her feel good we had to be as gentle as the Immortan_ ," Capable quoted softly. "That's what the angry one said."

"Kompass," Cheedo supplied. "Furiosa's third, the Pups say, right after the Ace." She still struggled to believe that Warboys would care about making anybody feel good, even if it had only been these particular ones. It went against everything she'd ever been told about Warboys.

Toast shook her head. "Still can't believe they thought the old bastard was _gentle_ ,"

"If the fixed point in their world is that Joe is good, everything else falls into line with that," Gale said. "Even if it takes mental gymnastics."

"Was. Pretty sure that fixed point got kicked over today," Dag said.

"That's why Janey's making the rounds, seeing how the mood is tonight," Gale nodded. "Can't say how safe it'll be for any of you to go 'round alone, right now."

"Weren't plannin' on it," Many said.

"How do we teach all those people that somebody can say no to…" Toast spat, " 'breeding'?"

"It's hard to learn not to treat other people like things when you're a thing yourself," Capable said. "Maybe Furiosa can help get it through to them. Her boys seem to get it, at least a little."

Toast scoffs, “At least enough to stay mostly quiet and listen, or to make others listen, even if they look confused about it and ask questions that make me want to shoot them.”

"They're…" a voice interrupted, catching on itself. They looked up to see Janey walk in. She looked tired - they all did, but hers look fresh seeping. "I think we could all do with remembering that they're working with less resources than we are in specific places."

She dropped down in a chair and accepted a cup of water with a nod of thanks.

"You had time to grow into the thought of Joe being what he was." She looked at the sisters, who nodded reluctantly. "You had each other to talk to, Miss Giddy to help you find words." Her hand rubbed at her forehead, “Most of those I talked to seemed surprised to be asked for their feelings and then struggled to voice them. The few who did whispered them like they were ashamed of it or something, like they didn’t have a right to have them if the feelings were anything but Confidence or Certainty or, what was it they call it? Kamacrazy?”

She took small sips of water, looking at the cup astonished as if still not used to being able to have a refill.

"They've had this change dropped on their heads, and they're not used to thinking much beyond the practical. Their entire world just upended; it's gonna take some time, and not just the three days we’ve had."

“Nux figured it out in half a day,” the Dag pointed out.

"Did he, really? Or did he just go along with things because that was his only option?" Janey clicked her tongue in thought.

“We _did_ have to shove him off the Rig first,” Capable admitted quietly. "And Joe himself called him ‘mediocre’."

“So his place in the Citadel was pretty much gone anyway." Toast nodded.

"Did you talk to anybody in specific that made you think all this?" Gale asked Janey.

"One of Furiosa's boys, the one who lead the ceremony."

"Kompass. The one who said we must not have been worthy of Joe's good treatment," Toast spat.

"Mm. I think he probably feels different about that today. I got the sense that he, and probably the others, projected all the good things and the right things they could think of onto Joe. And that he's discovering that the real Joe was a different person from the one he constructed in his head."

"He did say that they'd imagined how Joe would have treated Furiosa, and then did what they'd imagined…"

The sisters exchanged glances and almost as one cringed or shivered and Toasts look near to burning a hole in the floor.

“ ‘How Joe treated Furiosa?’ Maybe the schlangers didn’t know him like we did, but even the _thought_ that they could— that they could _think_ to model themselves after him to ‘treat her right’,” Dag looked unable to continue.

"It says something about how they feel about her that they couldn't imagine anybody not treating her kindly," Capable said.

"It says something about how naive they are." Dag corrected.

“Sometimes I wonder if the only reason Nux started to listen was because he’d been hurt by him too,” Capable said, “And he’d still try to say that the only reason he had the skills he did, the life he’s had, was ‘by the Immortan’s hand’.”

“That warboy mentioned ‘being made in his image’.” The Vuvalini hummed.

“You have these half-lives half-right,” Many finally spoke up again, eyes thoughtfully drifting from person to person, “You may have walked among them for these three days but you’ve mostly dealt with Joe… they all look at him as a reason, but the worse ones look at him also as an _excuse_. Ya’ll talk of this ‘they’, and of these ‘others’; say their names like we wish that they would say ours, they’re not all the same. That’s,” she drifted, thinking, “That’s a dangerous way to live. Get hurt that way.”

“But how do we,” Cheedo struggled with the words a little, the rushed forward on finding them, “how do we deal with them then? If we’re to make a Green Place?”

“I’m not sayin’ they’re all dangerous, they’re… some of them’s like Guzzer, or Kompass, or The Ace. They _try_ , even if they don't have the right tools. Some… don’t bear mentioning. And you can’t—” she clicked her tongue in thought, “There isn’t just _one_ way to deal with them, or one way that they think, or one reason they’re the way they are. If there was, you’d think they’d all keep more memories of when we’ve all raised them for those precious thousand days before they’re taken away, but they don’t.”

Many’s face looks torn at the admittance, “We try but, when they come back, our sons to breed the younger ones of the court, they don’t admit to when they were babes barely at all. Those that do, it’s like dragging a wreck from the sand; kept saying some version of Joe saying it was soft to even mention that time.”

“And what’s wrong with being soft?” Dag demanded.

“ _Nothin'_ , unless it's been drilled out of you since you’ve first seen two thousand days. They. They’re shamed for soft things, kindnesses. They’re luxuries and War boys scoff at those, at anythin' not tough. Guzzer would be sweet t’me and tell me not to tell anyone, and if Furiosa’s crew attributed kindness to Joe, instead of themselves?” Many gives a wry laugh and looks at her fingers weaving against each other, “That does explain things. Even if gallin’.”

"I think they care about Furiosa a lot, even if they have no words for it. Maybe they couldn't imagine anybody hurting her, so obviously the man they looked up to couldn't have."

"Her crew may be the best inroad we have. They're well respected," Cheedo said. "The Pups say her crew was a legend. They’d asked that warboy to lead out of all the others."

They looked up as Max entered, hesitating just inside the doorway. Capable sent him a smile and gestured invitingly.

"The old Boy, Ace," Gale contined, "We need to talk to him."

Many nodded, “As good a place as any, that one’s dedicated.”

“Loyal enough to listen to hard truths?” Toast asked, “I noticed he wasn’t at the ceremony today.”

Max made a sound, and they turned to him. “He’d, ah, was with Furiosa. And me. Was protective, but broken.” Max fidgeted and then looked back up at them, “Had a conversation, think that none of them make sense if y’don’t remember… She uh, she betrayed them. For the escape," he looked around. "Left them for dead."

"You think she's in danger?"

"No-no, not from them. But they have a lot of," he made a vague hand gesture, "They still feel loyal, or want to, despite that. Might be making them more broken."

"They were the collateral damage." Janey nodded.

" 'She betrayed them' for _us_ ," Cheedo whispered, “the ones when we first set out, they gave their lives for her.”

“They’re used to being Battle Fodder."

"For Joe ." Gale said. "They were sacrificed for something very different, a very many of them. They bled for something, and now we're saying that none of that meant anything. Now they're trying to be okay with the new thing after protecting and investing so much effort into something... that turned sour," the Vuvalini’s face turned distant.

"Or turned meaningless." Janey nodded, looking suddenly ancient as well. “ We'd do well to remember that they were also wronged, if differently. And they have a right to be hurt.”

“I still think they'll listen to the Ace best. Maybe the rest of the crew would catch him up?” Cheedo suggested.

“About what happened today? All that was said?” Dag asked, “Do you think they would even know enough to repeat it?”

There was a long silence.

“We’d have to see, I think,” Capable admitted quietly.

The sisters sat there with the enormity of the change they were attempting weighing on them. The lack of Angharad and Miss Giddy and Furiosa feeling like an empty space in the room that they did not know quite how to fill with their own presence. But none of the three were here right now, due to death or disappearance or injury, and there was so much to be _done_. There was no time to spare, they _must_ act and they _must_ hurry. Cheedo would cry with it, but she didn’t have the energy.

They all sat there feeling the future pressing down.

“Mmm, yesterday you’d mentioned having me scout,” Max said to Toast, “Figure it’s still needed but, hm, wonderin’ if anything’s been set.”

Toast nodded and Capable waved him up and they all stood up to step closer to the lone flickering light source, wobbling as the reserves from that day’s wind ran down. He’d taken out a bit of cloth and they were all peering at it in the dimness, discussing where Max would be going.

Cheedo looked at them for a bit, and then turned back to their circle, Janey looking heartsore and Gale pensive. Many had been sitting quietly, observing them all. Cheedo and Dag exchanged a glance and then Dag nodded at her, so Cheedo took a breath.

“So, the seven sisters that you’d mentioned,” Cheedo asked slowly, “is it based on the seven stars?”

“How do you know?” Many blinked at her.

“There’s other stories based on them but, I mean they’re all sort of different.” Cheedo darted her eyes around, “I think… I think we would like to hear your story too. If you’re not too tired?”

Faces curious, Janey and Gale turned towards Many who seemed to preen a little with the attention.

“I think there’s still enough time in this evening to tell it,” Many replied, looking pleased, clearing her throat, “it begins when ‘Wurrunah had had a long day's hunting, and he came back to his camp…’”


	21. Soupy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soupy - A hold that is wet and slimy from water or some other source.
> 
> "Mm. What's yer name?"  
> She looked at him with wide eyes.  
> "Marienny."  
> "Mary-enny," he repeated, as if committing it to memory. He put his pants back on. "'m Guzzer."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somebody said 'I ship Guzzer/Many now' and sometimes I'm very suggestible. So here. 
> 
> I tagged for mildly dubious consent in the sense that both parties think they are things, so their base level consent is iffy, but they both choose and enjoy what happens between them here.

Marienny looked around the receiving room of the breeders court. It was just Furiosa's crew today, which made it much calmer than it was when some of the other crews were given their visit. Furiosa hadn't had her crew for long, but she had them in line. Marienny herself was five moons along for the first time, visible enough that they'd all recognised she wasn't there to be bred. She slowly walked around, offering the oil bowl to smooth things along where it was needed. There was still some chatter, the boys full of their successful trade run and needing to tell the stories, but on some of the pallets things were moving along.

She heard the entrance door open and in came a last warboy, tall and wide through the shoulders. He looked plenty experienced, his scars both from work and decoration, but he was painted up all shine like a brand new warboy.

"Hello," she went to meet him. It was never good to let a warboy stand around feeling ignored or awkward; you never knew which ones got angry. She thought she'd seen him before, with the War Rig crew, but he'd never chosen her.

"Hello."

He took her in, noticed her swollen belly, and shook his head slightly. Not at her, she thought, maybe more at the situation.

"Guess there's nobody needin' to be bred," he said, his voice soft and low. "I'll just--"

"At least stay and drink something?" Marienny suggested. There was something about his easy acceptance of being too late that she couldn't quite place. Most of the warboys could barely wait in their excitement. Now she thought of it, she didn't know if he'd ever chosen somebody in the court. Always come in too late. Maybe he didn't like breedin'?

There was something in the awkwardness of his body and face to suggest otherwise, even if he’d offered to leave. And why would he have taken the trouble to paint up all nice and fresh if he didn't want to be here in the first place?

Even if there was no breedin', these visits were supposed to be a reward, and she was surprised to find she wanted to at least— well, she didn't want him to just turn around and go again.

She led him over to an empty pallet, unselfconscious about the sounds of breeding from the nearby pallets, and he sat down while she brought him a cup of Aqua Cola. He looked a little uneasy, and she sat down next to him.

"The rest of the boys come here straight from their duty," she said after a long moment. "Why did you take the time to paint up fresh?"

"Isn't… don't think it's right ta…" he gestured at his own torso. "Gotta look right."

His paint was thick, and more oily than most of them used, as if he made a different mixture. It wouldn't flake off

"I think you look very right," she decided, looking him over. He looked strong and healthy, no lumps on him yet. He had shine scars on his chest and arms. And she liked his voice, all soft and rumbly. He looked back, shoulders a little hunched as if he wasn't sure her looking was a good thing.

"Can I…" she trailed a tentative finger over the scarring on his upper arm, followed the lines up along his shoulder. He tensed for a moment, but then he made a hum as if realising it felt good, and nodded.

She slipped her other hand up too, and gently encouraged him to turn his back to her a little. Just stroked his shoulders at first, light touch hardly disturbing the paint.

He looked up at her, eyes wide, and she wondered if he'd really never chosen anybody at the court. Had he always come in late, realised there was nobody left, and gone away again? Was that the intent? Did he not like being touched?

He reached out and took her hand from his shoulder, turned it over in his much larger hands. There was a light smear of white on her palm. He looked at her.

"If ya rub it off, I won't look right anymore."

"You can always apply it again though, right?"

He looked down at her hand again.

"Won't look right for you, though."

 _Oh._ He'd made that effort specially? And he looked like he had wiped off the road dust some of the others liked to show off, evidence of their status as rig crew.

"I like that you're all fresh 'n clean," she said slowly. "Don't matter if you stay that way though."

He hummed as if that pleased him, and put her hand back on his shoulder, patting it lightly to indicate she could resume. She shifted to sit behind him on the pallet, on her knees so that she was high enough to put a little strength into the massage.

His paint gradually wore off where she kneaded and stroked his neck and shoulders and back, and she understood why he'd been worried, because he wasn't pale like the Immortan liked his warboys to look. He'd probably been concerned she would find him less for it, feeling the need to work harder to look respectable, and still risk her not wanting to be bred by him because she didn't want pups that would have to use so much paint. The girls didn't have much to choose, but she knew some had preferences about who they'd prefer to be picked by when it was their fertile time.

He gradually relaxed, until he was leaning against her, his back smearing some paint onto her loosely wrapped cloth. On the pallet next to them there were the sounds of a warboy reaching his temporary Valhalla, and the warboy under her hands shifted. When she glanced over his shoulder, she realised he was hard, aroused by the sounds of breeding all around them, or perhaps by her touch. Warboys didn't touch anybody much outside of punching, she knew that.

"We could still.. if you wanted?" she said softly, not really sure why she was suggesting it. If he'd demanded to breed her, she would have resented it; she didn't have to be available, being bred up already. That he didn't demand anything somehow changed things.

He reached back to put a big, careful hand against the side of her rounded belly. His hand was rough and calloused, but it felt nice.

"Got a full belly already," he rumbled. "Don't wanna disturb the pup."

She smiled against the back of his neck.

"I know a way that you won't," she said, not really sure why she seemed to want this with him, wanted to prolong this moment.

He looked at her a moment, trailed his fingers from her shoulder to her wrist.

"Yeah?"

She nodded, and gestured for him to take off his pants. She dipped her hand into the nearby oil bowl.

Apparently he hadn't expected to take off his pants, because the skin under it was mostly unpainted, a deep, dark brown. She slid an oily hand over the line of his hip and then took him in hand, liking the low, almost startled sound he made.

She got them positioned on the pallet, stretched out together face to face, and when his hips began to twitch into her hand motions, nudged him closer, putting his slicked gearstick between her upper thighs.

"Between, not inside," she whispered, and he nodded, one big hand wrapping around her shoulder, the other around her hip. Held her still and began to move, slowly at first, as if he was savourin' it.

She'd really only been thinking about what she could offer him that she wanted to share, but it felt surprisingly good, especially when she angled her hips so that he rubbed against her sparkplug. Soon she was making little gasps on every thrust of his hips, and oh, this was— this was _something_ , with the way he cradled her close against him and the little sounds he was making, his open mouth pressed against the side of her neck. She could feel the scrape of his teeth, but there wasn't the fear he would bite; he was sucking on her skin, and it was giving her odd but pleasant sensations.

One of her hands had ended up in his neck, encouraging him to stay close, and the other was on his ass, enjoying the way she could feel his muscles flex as he moved.

She made a breathless, surprised sound as he ground against her harder, and then he was groaning softly, rhythm gone unsteady, and she could feel his seed on her skin. Whatever hill she'd been racing up flattened off, never quite cresting, but it was still easily the most enjoyable thing she'd ever done with a warboy. Especially when he didn't move right away, stayed close to her for long moments even though all around them warboys were finishing, getting dressed.

"Mm." She sighed, liking the way her belly felt pressed against his muscular stomach. She could feel paint on her face from where she'd pressed it against the side of his throat.

"Mm," he agreed, licking that sensitive spot on her neck. He sounded satisfied, and she shivered.

When he finally moved, she could see that she'd left a white handprint on his ass. The thought was so absurd that she chuckled. He turned his head to follow her gaze and snorted.

"Not washing that off."

She felt herself glow with something warm, absurdly pleased that this had been… had been _something_ , for him too. He rubbed the pad of his thumb over her cheek, either scrubbing at paint or smearing it out. She suspected the latter.

"That was nice," she said, not sure why she said it. It wasn't like it mattered to the warboys what the breeders thought. He looked pleased though.

"Mm. What's yer name?"

She looked at him with wide eyes.

"Marienny."

"Mary-enny," he repeated, as if committing it to memory. He put his pants back on. "'m Guzzer."

She didn't know what to say - no warboy had ever talked to her after breeding, even if he'd done so beforehand. He didn't seem so sure either, but he pulled a ragged blanket up over where she was laying, still on her side. He gave her a tiny smile and a soft "Bye" and then he was gone.

The thought of her handprint still on his ass gave her something to smile about at odd times over the next few days. 

* * *

* * *

It was probably foolish to stay in the breeding quarters the next time Furiosa's crew came in. She didn't need to be there. She didn't want to be bred. No, it was  _ definitely  _ foolish, and she knew it as soon as one of the warboys spotted her and shoved through the crowd toward her. He had a gleam in his eyes she didn't like at all. 

"Acid," the Ace said, halting the boy in his tracks. "Not her."

Marienny began backing away, trying to get out of Acid's line of sight. 

"I just wanna know what had Guzzer all--"

"No. She don't need to be bred," Ace said, voice loud and stern in a way Marienny had never heard it before. 

Acid turned around and cast his eyes over the girls who had to be available today. Marienny winced in sympathy with Naaka when Acid chose her. 

Ace himself chose Lizzybe, which surprised nobody and didn't displease her, and Marrienny noticed that the both of them seemed keen to get the pallet next to Acid, so they could keep an eye on what was happening. 

Marienny berated herself for volunteering for attending duty. The warboy probably wouldn't come, or wouldn't care, and she wasn't even sure why it  _ mattered _ , that he'd asked her name, that he'd wanted her to know his. Why she'd turned the encounter over in her head so many times. It had been… more than tolerable. Nice? Nice. She wouldn't mind if he'd choose her again. 

The girls guided the crew to the pallets, and Marienny went around ensuring everybody had a cup of Aqua Cola, that those who wanted it had oil. 

Next time she looked he was there just inside the door, eyes already on her. 

Very aware of all the other people that might be looking, she went to him calmly, gave him a small smile. 

"Too late again?"

"Hm," he agreed, with a gleam in his eyes. "Pity."

He kept his eyes on hers while he took a step toward the corner of the breeding quarters, the pallets there a little more shielded, and she fell in at his side without thinking about it. 

He reached for her, then dropped his hand back to his side. 

"Can I-- hmm.." he made the gesture again, and she watched him, baffled. 

"Boss says we have ta ask."

She felt her eyebrows rise. What… why? What was the purpose of that? They all needed to get bred up, the Immortan wanted them to give him plenty of pups. Did the Imperator mean that they could say no to a warboy? They all needed to get bred up, but if given the choice, there'd be a few warboys who'd never touch any of them ever again. 

"An you have ta say yes," Guzzer added, sitting down on the edge of the pallet. Oh. Well that made sense, just some ritual the Imperator had decided on. 

"Yes. You can touch me," she said, knowing she would have said it even if she didn't have to. She sat down next to him on the pallet. 

He turned to her and reached up, one of his huge hands cupping her face, the other petting her hair. He smoothed down the soft curls, trailed his fingers through them. Seemed to like the feeling of it. He leaned in to press his nose against her hair, and she couldn't help smiling. Guzzer seemed fascinated with her hair, and she supposed that wasn't surprising. The children young enough to live with the breeders had short hair for ease of care, and as soon as they became Warpups they were shaved. 

"Do you want to lie down?" she murmured. 

He tipped them both over, careful to guide her down gently, and put himself so he was with his chest to her back. She tensed for a moment at no longer seeing his face, but then he kissed the side of her neck, the same spot he'd given such attention last time, and she relaxed. 

His hand roamed over her side, her hip. Then lightly up to her breasts, and she let out a breath, pushing into his touch a little. He made a soft hum and adapted the pressure she showed him. Quick on the uptake, this warboy. 

She could feel his hard prick up against her ass, but he was only absently rocking his hips a little, apparently focused on exploring her body. One big hand trailed down, over her belly. Patted lightly a moment, as if saying hello to her pup, and slid further down. 

His fingers were large and dry, and this felt familiar, being explored with curiosity but little interest for how she felt. She let herself take a shallow breath, waiting for him to do with her body what he wanted. Just because he'd asked her name didn't mean this wasn't a breeding.

He made a considering sound and his hand disappeared a moment, to reappear with oil. He pressed his nose into her hair and took a deep breath. 

"Marienny… You're shine," he murmured, nose pressed behind her ear. She smiled a little, slowly coming back into the moment. His fingers slipped between her legs, and her breath hitched as he slid past her sparkplug. 

"Mm?"

"Yes. That's nice," she whispered. She could feel him smile against her. He crooked his finger a little

"Thought about you." It was the softest of confessions. "Makin' those shiny sounds."

Marienny felt herself flush with the idea that he'd thought of her. Had he gotten himself off at the thought of her, at the sounds of her enjoyment? She turned her head enough to see him from the corners of her eyes. 

"Did you spill yourself, thinking about it?"

"Mm-hm," he confirmed, moving his fingers slow and searching, and her hips jerked a little, rocking against his touch. She sighed at the flash of pleasure. He groaned softly and she felt his prick pressed hotly up against her ass, rocking with more intent now. It brought both their hips moving and her sparkplug against his fingers just right, and she curled her fingers around his wrist, keeping his hand where she wanted it. 

"Can breeders go to see Valhalla's gates?" he asked softly, and it took her a moment to realise he meant climax. 

"I think so," she whispered. She'd tried, a few times, just her and her fingers. It had felt like edging up to something big and unknowable, and she hadn't quite been able to get there. 

"Wanna show you," he breathed over her ear, and she shivered. His own breathing sounded more laboured now, and she rocked her hips more actively, liking how he felt against her ass, slick and hard and powerful. Every rocking motion of her hip brought her against his hand just right, a flash of pleasure, and she heard herself make needy little sounds. Her stomach muscles were tensing, and her whole body felt primed for something, as if she needed to  _ move _ , to shift up a gear and fang it, race up that hill at top speed. 

She felt his large hand curl around her jaw, cover her mouth, and she hadn't realised how loud she'd become until she held back the sounds. She grazed the pads of his fingers with her teeth, and he groaned over her ear, and she felt her whole body tense, everything too much and not enough all at once, and then she crested that big hill, and--

He muffled her moans with his hand and kept rocking her, gearstick grinding slickly against her ass. His other hand still at her sparkplug, and she twitched weakly, gasping at the shoots of sensation she could barely process. Just then his breathing stuttered, a warm, damp moan over her ear that made her shiver, and she felt his seed spurt onto her lower back.

She nipped at his hand to remind him it was still over her mouth, and he chuckled into her ear, letting his hand slip down to her chest. 

"One of the others been askin' questions," he murmured. "Don't wanna draw his attention to you."

She nodded. She'd rather not have Acid's attention on her either, and anything a warboy showed particular interest in was likely to try to be claimed by others. 

"You're so shine.. so shine…" Guzzer murmured, arms tightening to cradle her close, and she was surprised to find she didn't mind being confined like this. Not with the sweet way his lips trailed her neck, his hand was lightly cupping her belly. His body was warm and firm against her back, and she wished for more time. The first warboys were already leaving. She could just see the Ace and Lizzybe getting up, and Guzzer made a disgruntled little sound, as that meant his time was up too. 

His hand slid to her side, and he gently rolled her forward a little, half onto her stomach. She made a questioning noise, but he slipped down behind her, and then she felt his mouth on her spine, cleaning his seed from where he's smeared it onto her skin. Nobody had ever touched her like that, and it was such an odd sensation, a little ticklish and somewhere between too much and not nearly enough, that she shivered and heard herself make a whimper sound. 

He chuckled against her skin, and then sat up, letting his hand trail from her side down to her ankle as if he wanted to keep touching her as long as possible. Then he sat on the foot end of the pallet, his back to her, as he put on his trousers and boots. Another warboy called out to him, something crude Marienny tried to ignore, and Guzzer answered while pulling a blanket over her, back of his fingers giving a tiny brushing touch to her jaw before he turned away.

"Bye," she whispered, but he was already gone. 

* * *

* * *

It was her right to avoid the breeding quarters while she was bred up - the Organic Mechanic didn't want rough breeding to risk growing pups - but Marienny tried to keep being around when Furiosa's crew visited the breeding court. 

In the months that her belly grew, Guzzer touched her gently, whispered to her, made her see the gates of Valhalla, and she came to look forward to his visits, short as they were. Her suggestion that he didn't bother with the fresh paint - it would give them more time - baffled him so much that she didn't bring it up again. 

Apparently Ace's correction of Acid had stuck with the crew, because while some of them seemed interested in her, they mostly left her alone and chose the other girls. 

Then one time a slim, short warboy with twin scars on his chest came up to her. She'd seen him once or twice before, but thought he'd been one of the ones that didn't care for breeding. 

"I can't be--"

"That's okay, I can't breed anyway," he said quickly. "Guzzer ain't comin' today, said I should talk to ya."

Her heart pounding in her throat, she lead him to one of the pallets in the back, and they sat down with their backs to the other pallets.

The warboy kicked off his boots and settled down next to her. "Guzzer got hurt, he's in the Blood Shed. Not so bad though," he continued quickly, and she could only imagine what he'd read on her face. She wasn't supposed to care, he was only a warboy and he was going to die historic sooner or later, just because he whispered her name and asked what she liked… she wasn't supposed to care. "Boss'll have him in her quarters tonight, take good care of him."

"Okay," she said, oddly touched that Guzzer had thought to get somebody to tell her. 

"'m Sprocket," the warboy said, and Marienny felt herself blush a little. She'd heard that name - Guzzer had said 'Sprocket said to use my mouth, said it'd feel shine' last time she'd seen him. Just before he'd slid down her body and done things that had made her leave teeth marks in her own forearm in an effort to be quiet. 

"Guzzer said you kneaded his shoulder, made it work better. Since you can't breed and I can't breed, I thought-- my back…" 

He glanced at her, clearly uneasy with admitting there was something wrong with him, and she nodded. 

"I'll get some oil."

* * *

When her pup started coming, she hadn't seen Guzzer in almost a moon. There was to be a visit from Furiosa's crew that day and she might have cursed the pup for not bein' able to wait one more day, so she could have-- well, even just sit with him for a bit. Feel his big hands on her skin. But she was so thoroughly tired of being huge, so ready to finally have a pup for the Immortan, she couldn't regret it. 

Lizzybe would be staying with her for the birth, four moons gone herself, but went to the breeding rooms for the visit to assist there. When she came back she was smiling a little. 

"Your warboy asked after you," she said, joining Marienny on one of her countless circuits of the living quarters. She was trying to breathe down a wave of pain, so Lizzybe had to repeat herself before it sank in. 

_He hadn't forgotten about her._

"Told 'im you were labouring, and he said to give you this--"

She opened her hand, and there was a-- Marienny bent closer, grimaced at the twinge in her back. It was a leather thong with a single, green bead of glass. She gasped and lifted it to look at it more closely. This was something-- something he'd traded for, probably. He'd not only not forgotten about her, he'd seen something shine somewhere on a trade run, maybe even gone looking for it. For her. She felt an odd, light feeling in her stomach.

"Want me to put it on you?"

She nodded, and Lizzybe put the thong over her head and adjusted the knot. The bead was a pleasant weight against her skin, and when she was heaving for breath later that day, shoving her pup into the world with a hoarse roar, the bodyheat-warmed bead sat against her throat like a promise. 

* * *

Three weeks later she handed her milk-full pup to Lizzybe and volunteered for attending duty. She hadn't stopped bleeding yet, and Organic wouldn't approve of her going out there. There would be enough girls for Furiosa's crew though, and she'd wrapped her cloth high and closed to signal she wasn't available for breeding. 

The glass bead sat heavy and warm against her skin, hidden under the cloth. 

When Guzzer saw her, his eyes lit up, and she was very aware of the eyes that might be on them as she went to him. It was no secret that they favoured each other, but she hadn't forgotten his worry about drawing attention. She didn't look at his face, not yet, as she lead him to one of the pallets in the back. 

"Marienny," he sighed, gently drawing her close. He looked at her, almost inspecting her, and she felt herself relax when he pressed his lips to her forehead. "Thought about you."

"I--" she choked on the words, reached for his hand instead. Guided it up to high up on her sternum, over the cloth. His eyes widened when he felt the bead there, and her stomach felt strange and light all of a sudden. 

He guided her down to the bed, on their sides and close together, and his hand cradled her face. 

"..y'look tired," he finally said, a little worried. 

"Little pups don't let you sleep much," she said. 

"Oh. You don't want to see--" he gestured vaguely. "The gates?"

He was half-hard against her thigh, and she felt exhausted at the thought alone. Maybe coming out hadn't been a good idea after all. She'd been so eager to see him that she hadn't considered he would want to sex. 

She shook her head. "You can. If you want." She wouldn't even mind, she thought. He'd always been careful not to hurt her.

He clearly considered it for a long moment, but then he hummed, his hand stroking long passes over her back. 

"I like it when you like it," he murmured, rolling onto his back and pulling her close against his side.

_ I want the next pup to be from your seed _ , she almost said. Instead she nestled against him, her head on his shoulder and one leg drawn up and over his, her arm across his broad chest. He felt the new scars on the front of his shoulder and touched them lightly. 

"I worried," she confessed. 

"It was mediocre," he sighed, sounding annoyed with himself. "Not nearly chrome enough."

"I worried about  _ you _ ," she clarified. 

"Oh." he didn't quite seem to know what to do with that, but he tipped up her face and lightly kissed her lips.

Marienny made a sound of content, her body heavy and comfortable on the pallet. She didn't have anywhere to be or anything to do; Lizzybe was taking care of Singa. She could just be here. 

"Sorry," she murmured when her eyes began drifting shut. 

She felt him chuckle. 

Marienny gradually became aware of the sound of voices and motion in the room. A hand was making slow, soothing passes over her head and down along her back, and she was warm and comfortable. 

"Marienny," a low voice rumbled, and she could hear the smile, and smiled against his shoulder. "Best wake up."

"Mmh."

She sleepily shifted away to give him space to move, and he gently thumbed at the bead through her cloth, as if reassuring himself it was still there. Then he brushed a kiss over her lips and she curled up while he turned to pull on his boots. 

"'ey Guzzer, wha'did ya do to that girl?" she heard somebody call. 

"Exhausted 'er!" Guzzer called back. 

* * *

* * *

Singa was halfway into his second moon when the Organic Mechanic decided Marienny ought to go back into the rotation. She might have been able to put it off for another tenday if they hadn't expected two crews, neither of them Furiosa’s, but as it was further delay would have been unfair to the others. 

She hadn't had to be available for breeding in almost a six-moon, and it was unexpectedly hard to pretend interest in the warboy that chose her, to lay back and let her mind drift and let him breed her. She tried not to think about what Guzzer's hands had felt like, how carefully he had listened to her her every breath, her every sound. 

She was startled back into the present when the warboy bent down to suck at her nipple, mouth rough on tender flesh. 

"No!" she snapped, and he looked at her in utter surprise. "That's for my pup."

He scowled, not used to being denied something by a breeder. But Marienny was tired and sore and wished he'd just finish. Perhaps it was her long break from this duty, but she could barely feign the patience to lie there. 

He seemed to decide it wasn't worth the argument, and continued breeding her with rough thrusts. When he finished and rolled off her, she laid there in the cool, damp air of the breeding rooms and felt nothing at all. 

* * *

She'd never been so glad to have to wait for a visit of Furiosa's crew. When it was their turn, three days later, the soreness of rough treatment had mostly healed. 

She managed to escape the attention of his fellow crew, but it felt like a close thing. Now she no longer had an excuse to refuse a breeding, Guzzer coming in late might mean she had already been chosen. 

His eyes flicked around the room as he came in, and he looked relieved when he saw her waiting for him. She was waiting for him and there was no point in trying to deny it to herself. She'd looked forward to seeing him. 

He breathed her name while they went to one of the pallets further back in the breeding room, fingertips stroking lightly at her wrist. It made a shiver run down her back. 

"You're well?" he asked softly, looking her over. She nodded. Well enough, anyway. 

"You should come in with the rest of your crew," she whispered, stepping into his arms. "Or I might not be free to see you."

"But the…"

"I don't care about the paint."

She felt the shock of those words sink into his body, his big hands going still on her back before continuing their pleasant wandering. 

"Heard.. warboy from Noxious's crew…" he hesitated, body tense, and she wondered if he objected to her having been bred by another. Warboys weren't supposed to claim anything for themselves. "I hope he didn't hurt you," he finished, mumbled against her neck. 

She couldn't lie to him. "A little, but I'm okay now."

He made a little hum of acknowledgement against her neck, and she steered them onto the pallet, nudging him to take off his shoes and pants. Took off her wrapped cloth. 

He trailed to a halt with his pants halfway down, just looking at her, and Marienny smiled, nudging him with her foot. He hurriedly kicked down his pants and trailed a hand up her leg, crawling up the foot end of the bed until his face was hovering close to her hips. He glanced up at her.

"I want you to breed me," she said softly, because maybe they shouldn't waste time. She would be happy to be pregnant again, both to serve the Immortan and because it would mean she didn't have to be available to breedings. Producing pups for the Immortan kept her safe, so the sooner the better. And if she was going to get bred up, she hoped it would be by Guzzer. 

He made a thoughtful sound and gently pushed her legs apart, made space for himself there to angle his broad shoulders between her thighs. One hand stayed close, traced through her curls, while the other slid up to gently cup her breast. 

"Guzzer, I want you to--" she tried to say, before his mouth lowering to her body lanced her trail of thought. His tongue traced her sparkplug and she put her arm over her mouth to muffle the moan she couldn't hold back. After a few minutes he carefully slid his finger into her, and she could feel her muscles twitch and clench around him. He didn't stop until she saw strange bursts of light behind her eyes, her hand tugging weakly at his arm to make him slide up. She could feel his gearstick against her thigh, stiff and leaking. 

His face was wet, and he looked very pleased with himself when he saw her dazed look. He shifted to the side of her and helped her turn toward him, kissing her while pressing his gearstick between her slicked thighs. She blinked, because she wanted-- hadn't he understood?

"I want your stick inside of me," she said, spreading her legs. He made a confused sound as she rolled onto her back. She traced her fingertips over his cheek. "I want you to give me a belly full of your seed."

"But I-- a pup would… you  _ want… _ ?"

" _ Yes _ ," she said, a little surprised she had to convince him. "If I'm gonna be bred up, I want it to be by you. Come on."

She pulled him on top of her, knowing he'd support his weight on his forearms. He felt warm and solid on her body, but she didn't feel trapped, with the way he was looking at her. His cheek felt hot when he leaned down to whisper in her ear. 

"I've never…"

_ Oh _ . She'd just assumed-- well, nevermind. She slipped her hand down between their bodies and his breath hitched when she curled her fingers around his shaft, gave him a slow stroke. Then she guided him toward her entrance. 

"Slow, real slow," she told him, voice gone thready as he sank into her, the stretch of it, her body still sensitive from earlier, the soft sounds Guzzer was making, all of it combining to make her shiver. 

"Okay?" he asked when his hips pressed up against hers. His face was hovering over her, and she clenched her muscles around him, craning up to muffle the strangled little sound he made with her lips. 

He set a slow pace, steady but intense, and she found her fingers trailing over his back, nails scratching lines along his spine that he seemed to enjoy. She hadn't expected the breeding itself to feel good, but he was hot and thick inside her, the deliberate pacing making heat spark in her belly. She could hear herself make little panting sounds, body straining against him. 

When his breathing got heavier, she pulled up her legs and wrapped them around his hips, and he made a startled, breathless noise, pressing his mouth to the tender spot behind her ear as he pulsed inside of her. 

"Shine, so shine…" she heard him murmur into her hair, and she let her hand rest in his neck, over his brand, to encourage him to stay where he was. He was heavy, but right now it felt good, her legs wrapped around him with his gearstick still inside of her, all the warm, relaxed weight of him. She felt strangely powerful in this moment, something she'd never felt before when being bred. 

They gradually became aware of other Warboys getting dressed, chatting together, boasting to each other. Guzzer made a disgruntled sound low in his throat, and Marienny sighed. She wished he could just… stay, for a little longer. 

When a few minutes later they heard the Ace's voice, Guzzer sighed and leaned up to kiss her, hand caressing her face in a way that made her feel strangely tearful. Then he carefully climbed off her, softened gearstick sliding out of her, and she missed the warm weight of him before he pulled a blanket over her. 

He sat on the edge of the bed to put on his pants and boots, and she idly watched the brown lines on his back where she'd scraped away the paint. 

"Hey," she said softly, when he was nearly done. Reached out to trail her fingers along his ribs. "Be earlier, next time?"

He gave her a look she couldn't quite decipher, but took his hand gently in hers, tangled their fingers for a moment. His lips quirked up a little at the paint under her fingernails. 

"'ey Guzzer! Got her worked up enough to scratch yer back, did ya?"

She could see his face close up, the fondness in his eyes getting shuttered. 

"Keep it down, Volt, fucksake."

"Why? Seems like a good thing," the warboy laughed."I wanna make the Boss do that to me."  


"You need some tips or somethin'?" Guzzer drawled, and squeezed Marienny's hand softly, getting up and joining the other warboy without looking at her, as if trying not to draw attention to her.

They left the room quietly chatting.

* * *

* * *

"Marienny! Your warboy is here!"

"What? The rig ain't been out again, has it?"

"He's on his own!"

That wasn't supposed to happen, and Marienny felt a flutter in her stomach, something that felt a lot like excitement or dread or maybe both. She wrapped up Singa and handed him off to Lizzybe's waiting arms. Took a swig of Aqua Cola to rinse her mouth, checked the drape of her clothes, reflexively touched the green glass bead at her throat to make sure it was still there, even though she never took it off.

Naaka withdrew the bolts on the door that separated the breeding room from the living quarters, and Marienny went through, her face warm.

He was there. All freshly painted, his face lighting up when he saw her, and she couldn't help herself, hurried over.

"Are you allowed— _how—_?"

"I done good," he shrugged. "Boss let me choose a reward," a small grin. "I can be here until three-bells."

Her eyes widened, because that was more than twice the time they'd ever had together before. She also felt inexplicably uncertain all of a sudden. Every time they had spent time so far had been governed by the rules of breeding times, under the eyes of dozens of other people. Being alone with him, in the otherwise empty breeding room, while they had more time than they'd ever had before—

She saw his hand twitch toward her, then lower again, and she huffed a breath, because apparently she wasn't the only one at little at a loss.

"Do you want Aqua Cola?" she blurted, searching for steady ground. Hospitality, right. That was part of the breeding sessions. This was a reward for him.

He nodded, and she went to get a cup for him, trying to get her sudden nerves under control. Her face felt like it was glowing. When she handed him the cup his fingers brushed hers, and some of the fresh layer of paint smeared onto the back of her thumb. She touched it with her other thumb, smearing it out. He watched her do it and took a sip of the Aqua Cola, and then she found herself staring at his mouth.

"I, um."

He gestured vaguely.

"Do you want, I mean—"

He finally went to a nearby pallet and sat down on the edge, and she followed without realising, until she stood in front of him. Shook herself and sat down next to him, almost close enough to be touching.

"Do you want—" he offered her the last of the Aqua Cola, and she accepted the cup, drank it down in small sips. She licked the last drop from her lips, and then he was staring at her.

It wasn't like the warboys stared when they came in for breeding, like she was food to be devoured. It was something else, and she couldn't name it, and she felt flushed and confused and restless, hands playing with the now-empty cup.

"Can I— um."

"Yes." She wasn't sure what she was saying yes to, but it didn't matter.

They stared at each other for the space of a second, and then he leaned in and cupped the back of her head in his huge hand, and she shivered.

"...yes," she breathed, and then he was kissing her, and _yes_ , this was right, this was what they should have been doing all along. It only took a moment before she found herself parting her lips, making little sounds low in her throat.

She ended up straddling his lap, her arms twined around his broad back. His hands roamed her back, sometimes smoothing down her spine to cup her ass. At one point his fingers gently dug into her hair, massaging her scalp, and she felt her entire body go soft and still under his touch.

He grinned against her ear and guided her head to rest against his shoulder, and she made a happy little sound when he kept going.

"Boss likes this too."

"Mmm."

"You going to sleep?" he asked at some point.

"No…" she sighed, though maybe she had been a little. "Just feels nice. Be touched like that."

"I like it. Can I… can I touch you all over?"

"Mmm-hm," she hummed. There probably wasn't much she'd have refused him right now.

He unknotted her belt and laid it aside, and then unwrapped her cloth. She pressed a lazy kiss to his lips and felt him smile. Then he moved her onto the pallet and just sat there looking at her nakedness for a while.

"Just gonna look?"

"Mm, maybe. Nice view."

She chuckled, and stretched out. She felt good, exposed in a way that was - for once - not uncomfortably vulnerable. His little murmurs and the darker colour in his cheeks meant he enjoyed looking at her, but she knew her preening wouldn't make him forget about what she liked and didn't like, or make him want to mindlessly breed her.

His hand smoothed up the outside of her leg, and she felt goosebumps rise in its wake, feeling her body rev up. He stroked her everywhere, even the places nobody had ever thought to touch - her elbows, her ankles, the arches of her feet. She squirmed a little at that, unable to decide if she liked it or not, and he chuckled, eyes on her face to gauge her reaction as he slid a hand to the back of her knee.

She heard herself make a little squeaking sound, and his answering chuckle made something flutter in her belly. He rubbed his cheek over the top of her foot and then nudged her over onto her front, so he could press a kiss to the back of her knee.

Marienny let out a shivery breath.

He made a questioning hum, and she chuckled into the mattress, turning her face so he could see she was enjoying this strange… whatever it was he was doing. She'd never been touched like this, and it was simultaneously relaxing and driving her a little bit crazy.

He rubbed his cheek against the back of her thigh, slowly moving up, and she jumped a little when he reached the swell of her ass and there were teeth, just lightly, just a nibble, and a rich chuckle. One of his hands was lightly kneading her other ass cheek, and she felt him rub his cheek where his teeth had just been, then finally just rest his head there.

"Wish I could sleep like this every night," he murmured, and she laughed, couldn't help it. The image of being used like a pillow like this was so strange. "'cause it'd mean I got to see you every night," he continued. "Shiny shiny Marienny."

"shiny pillow, you mean?"

He pressed a loud smack of a kiss against the curve of her asscheek, and then moved up a bit, rubbing his cheek all over her back. Now and then he'd stop and just press his nose against her and take deep breaths.

"Smell so good," he murmured, and she reached back to touch him, hand coming to land on his shoulder, petting idly. He made a happy little sound and licked between her shoulder blades.

"You're lucky I don't wear paint," she smiled.

She felt him shift around, the weight of him on the pallet, and then he moved over her, his torso brushing against her back. He was hovering over her, carefully keeping his weight off of her, and she shivered at the heat and the power of it, how easily he could smother her or hurt her without even trying, and at how carefully - and without apparent effort - he was making sure he didn't. It was like he'd wanted to caress her with more than his cheek or his hand, so he was using most of his body to do it.

"You're rubbing your paint onto me, aren't you?"

He moved until she could feel his breath at the back of her neck, a shiver going down her spine.

"...I may be," he admitted softly, and she could _hear_ his grin, it did something to her, made her feel some kind of swoop on her stomach, and she reached back and pulled his head down toward her so she could kiss him, craning her neck to the side. It pulled a part of his weight down onto her too, but she didn't mind, maybe even liked it, and she kissed him until she had to break away for air.

"I wanna make you feel chrome," he whispered against her cheek, and she laughed softly, because, well.

"I _am_ feeling chrome." Maybe the chromest she'd ever. Her whole body was humming.

"Chromer than now," he corrected. "Much chromer…." she felt his chest press lightly against her back, and she leaned up a little, increasing the contact. "Muuuuch chromer," he was still murmuring.

He rolled to the side of her, and she moved to lie in front of him, her head pillowed on his arm and her back tucked against the heated planes and angles of his body. His other arm came around her, and she made a happy little sound when he pulled up his knees to tuck his legs around hers. She wiggled back a little, increasing the contact. Felt his gearstick hard against her ass, and rolled her hips, enjoying the feeling of it.

"You gonna breed me again?"

He went quiet, thoughtful, his hand stroking idly low on her belly. 

"Does breeding…" he finally asked, close to her ear, "does it feel good for you?"

She turned her head to look at him, wondering what brought that on. He surely would have seen warboys with her fellow breeders. Observed, if he had thought to look at the women's faces, that it was more a thing to be endured than to be enjoyed.

"With you it did," she said finally. He made a little hum that told her he understood the implication of it being the only time. Truth be told she'd never thought of breeding as something that could be enjoyed. Undergoing it was just how you became bred up and were able to serve the Immortan. "I liked it."

"It didn't… make you see Valhalla," he said, hesitating. "Not like the Boss, sometimes, with fingers."

Huh. It was news that Furiosa and her crew… but then from the way her crew seemed to idolize their Imperator, she wasn't surprised. Guzzer murmured contemplatively, "How to rev you up proper just me, I can't with my mouth while I also—"

Marienny smiled a little while picturing the contortions necessary. They she squeezed the hand he had on her belly and moved it down, and he trailed his fingertips over her slickening lips with a little murmur. Teased her a while, familiar now with just how to get her going.

When she was squirming in his arms, rocking her hips in an effort to get his fingers touching her just right, she twisted her neck to kiss him. She felt herself make eager little noises, felt him grind his gearstick up against her ass.

"Like this," she panted, tearing her mouth away for air. She lifted her top leg and tilted her hips. "Want you to— breed me like thissss—" she trailed off into a high little whine as he finally circled her sparkplug with his fingertip. He chuckled low and dirty as he did it again, his gearstick slipping wetly against her opening. Her whole body felt primed for it, and when he finally slowly pushed into her, she moaned low at the way he filled her.

"Wanna make—" he panted, pressing his face against her neck, "Make you— feel so chrome…"

"Nnnggg." was all she could say when he bottomed out, feeling him so deep inside her, her fingers clamped around his wrist to make sure he didn't move his fingers away from where she wanted them. "Just… keep.. oh… doing thaa- _oh!_ "

His first long, slow thrust made it hard to think. How was this feeling so _good?_

"Doing what?" he teased, panting against her neck. "Like this?" he widened the circling of his fingertips just enough to make her whine, "or like this?" the circles changed direction but grew tighter again, and it was all she could do not to shriek, her mouth pressed against the meat of his upper arm.

Her hips moved of their own accord, rocked back against his at the end of his next thrust, and he made a strangled noise against her neck.

"Like that then,” he panted and continued the tight circles. She could feel the tenseness in his legs and hands as he tried so hard to maintain control, to focus on her.

"Yesssss," she shoved her hips back again, rocking them between his fingers and his gearstick. The bottom of her feet tingled. "Guzzer—!"

He groaned on hearing the wrecked way his name came out of her, and increased his intensity somehow, if not his speed.

"Gonna put a pup in your belly," he moaned. "Get you all bred up."

She pressed his hand harder against her, the words somehow like a shot of nitro inside of her, and she agreed breathlessly, "yeah... yeah, give me a belly full of seed, I— I wanna grow big with your pup."

He groaned loudly, shoving into her, and it was the spark, and then the ignition, and she gasped sharply, her whole body jolting in his arms. She could feel her body clench around him, and distantly she felt his seed pulse into her. His thrusts slowed, extra slick now, and the feeling of that slickness set off another ricochet of jolts.

Marienny couldn’t seemed to stop shivering and every shiver felt like it’s own separate spark, Guzzer seemed to try chasing the shivers away with one large palm but he only caused more of them. She took a deep breath and stretched into the feeling, bringing her hand up and around to land on Guzzer’s cheek.

“Chrome,” she pronounced grandly. Or at least she hoped that was what it sounded like, her ears were still buzzing.

The feeling of his laugh against her back was almost as chrome. It made his softened gearstick slip out, but the mess of it wasn’t even a bother. She rolled over, pressing up against him with a happy little sound, and he folded his arms around her. 

"Mmmmm," he rumbled against the top of her head, and she shivered, smiling against his neck. His hand made slow, sweeping passes down her back.

She didn't remember ever feeling this good, her limbs warm and heavy, every deep breath letting her sink deeper into the comfort of his touch. It felt so good to be in his arms, after, to have a little time together. Maybe that's why she'd felt so inexplicably sad after the first time he'd bred her, that she’d somehow wanted this without knowing.

She felt him take a deep breath a couple of times, his hand never pausing from its caress on her back. Finally he said softly, as if the thought was too strange to say aloud, "You really want a pup that's my colour?"

She pushed up a little so she could look at him, but he didn't meet her eyes. She looked over at him, strong and solid and _kind_ , with his big, gentle hands and his handsome wide nose and soft lips. She got distracted for a long moment with kissing those lips

"I want a pup that's like you," she finally said, looking for a part of him that wasn't covered in paint. Some of it had rubbed off onto the blankets and onto her, but it still left a pale layer on his skin. Finally she slid her hand down his arm and lifted his hand, pressing a kiss to the paler skin of his palm where he never put paint. "I want a pup that's like you and me."

He made an odd sound low in his throat and pulled her closer against him, his hand cupping her head so he could press a kiss against her forehead and then one to her lips that seemed to go on forever.

Eventually they heard the distant ringing of bells, and Guzzer groaned, pressing his face into her hair for a long moment.

"Wanna stay here," he mumbled.

"Won't you get in trouble?" She was all too happy to have him there, but not if it got him out of the good graces of his Imperator. Furiosa had granted him this time, after all.

"Ace said he'd come by if I wasn't back in time," he admitted. "And that I better have my pants on when he did."

He reluctantly detached himself from her and sat on the edge of the bed to put on his pants and boots. Marienny curled herself around him, a hand trailing his back. She didn't know why, but it was hard to stop touching him. He hummed and leaned back into her touch, petting her hair the moment he had a hand free.

She tilted back her head into his hand, smiling up at him, and he smiled back, tracing her face with his fingertips. They sat in silence like that until they were startled by the outer door banging open. Guzzer was on his feet in an instant, blocking her from whoever was in the door. There was a cheerful bellow of "You better be wearing pants!"

Then, "Oh, you are. Good. Hi Many."

She blinked, because— because the Ace knew her _name_?

Then he said to Guzzer, "Say goodbye. I'm waiting just out here," and closed the door again.

Guzzer turned back to her and kneeled down so he could kiss her, and it was tinged with regret and over too soon.

"What did you do to earn this, anyway?" she asked idly as he pushed to his feet. Hoping to distract herself. 

"Caught a grenade and threw it back," he grinned. "It was chrome."

She stared at him, wide eyed. She was aware that every run he risked his life, that good warboys weren't supposed to shy away from death. Possibly even looked forward to it. She'd just thought— she'd just _hoped._ That. That he wasn't looking for his exit just yet.

"Might do it more often if this is the reward," he grinned, apparently taking her horror for admiration, and was out the door.

* * *

* * *

She'd been worried that he'd stop appearing, that he'd find his way to Valhalla in his attempts to get to see her, but after a few more visits with his crew the fear slowly faded. Her belly grew, and she once again had the choice to see only him. He refused to breed her now, but their moments together were if possible even more enjoyable. He seemed more certain of his welcome, more confident with his touches, flushed with the hope that the pup she carried might really be his. 

They weren't supposed to do this, to be like this, and they both knew it. The feeling of stealing, of having something forbidden even if there weren't rules against it, never left them, and they were both careful to keep it as hidden as they could. 

Not that her fellow breeders didn't know, didn't help facilitate them sometimes. Some of them were jealous for being favoured by somebody who was sweet, careful. Being favoured - by a warboy or an Imperator - had never meant anything good before. But the idea of this, the shape of what some of the older breeders called a 'romance,' fit with some of their stories, and sometimes they'd ask Marienny how things were going, what Guzzer had said or done to make her smile. 

As she grew big and heavy he'd rub her sore back, her feet. Sometimes they would just curl up under the blankets together, and one of her fellow breeders next to them would make some extra noise. 

Sometimes he'd use his mouth on her, and he always held her afterward when she felt loose and warm and giggly.

He laughed ruefully sometimes, “I’m gonna grow addicted to your water.” 

"Your own fault for making me so wet," she teased lazily. She kissed some of the dampness from his full lips. 

* * *

When she had her baby, she was pleased to see that Damarwulan was indeed Guzzer's get. A sweet baby with strong lungs, she told him the first time she was able to see him after the birth. The smile on his face made the exhaustion feel worth it, more so than the knowledge she'd given the Immortan a child as he wanted. Maybe that's why they weren't supposed to get attached, if the joy of some warboy felt more important than the Immortan. 

"I bet he has the sweetness from you," Guzzer murmured against her hair, hands gliding warmly over her back. And then, when she was feeling so warmly relaxed she was on the edge of sleep, she could feel him studying her face, a careful fingertip tracing her cheekbones so lightly. She wondered if he was thinking about how Damar looked, if he'd even seen a baby's face, if he could remember. She was surprised by how much she liked the idea of him meeting her son, but there really was no way to let that happen. They both risked harsh punishment if they tried. 

Guzzer murmured idly, "Maybe I'll meet him when he comes to the Dens. If he has skin like mine, I'll know him."

The thought that he hoped to still be around by the time her tiny newborn was old enough to become a warpup made her feel warm inside. Maybe they had time, after all. 

* * *

"'ey Guzzer, she bred up again?" Kompass said. "You work fast, man."

"Good  run? " Sprocket grinned and patted his shoulder. 

Guzzer wasn't sure if to point out that it could easily be by somebody of the other crews. She might favour him - and with how pleased she'd be to tell him her baby looked like him, he no longer doubted that she did - but in the time she'd had to go back into the breeding rotation she'd had to receive the other crews as well as theirs. He tried not to be bothered by the thought. 

Or at least, he tried not to be bothered by the thought that the others who bred with her barely took notice of her. That was what she preferred, she'd told him, from warboys other than him. At least if they just bred her they didn't think to be cruel. 

And that thought was much worse, that some of them were rough,  _ mean  _ even. He'd always known that happened, but now he knew how nice it could be, not just for him but for both of them, that knowledge was much harder to take. Why would anybody— when they could make a breeder hum with pleasure? When you could treat her so she'd meet your eyes and hope to be chosen by you, why would anybody want to make it so that she cringed and tried to sidle away so you wouldn't pick her? 

Thankfully his own crew at least had become much better with the breeders, and from things Marienny had said, he got the feeling they weren't as unwelcome in the breeder quarters as the other crews. 

"Now give me some advice about that stuff you do," Kompass said, when the others had moved on. "The non-breeding stuff that makes her like ya. Boss pulled me in last time and I did what Sprocket said, but it was… if it happens again I wanna make her feel real shine."

"Boss don't like all the same things Marienny likes," Guzzer pointed out. For one thing, Marienny actually liked breeding if he did it nice and careful, said she liked how his gearstick felt inside of her. The Boss didn't permit any of her crew that. 

"I know that, but—" Kompass made a helpless gesture. "It ain't the same as breeding, but I'm never sure what…"

Guzzer thought he maybe  _ did  _ know, what the other man meant. They'd found a few things they knew the Boss liked, and licking her sometimes got her to see Valhalla, but it didn't always work. Sometimes she'd go quiet, or turn her face away, or suddenly curl up like it was too much or not enough or maybe both at the same time. And no matter how they tried, how Ace and Sprocket swooped in to hold her close all sweet and gentle, she wouldn't - or maybe couldn't? - say what was wrong. 

They thought maybe it wasn't enough like what the Immortan had been like, but how would they find out if she couldn't tell them? Or maybe it was like at the start, when Marienny would sometimes freeze up, go all quiet and still as if she'd gone somewhere else in her head. It had felt like he'd glanced away and suddenly they weren't riding on the same car anymore.

"She likes it when I look at her. Her eyes. Whisper her name. Touch her hair, all gentle like. Tell her I want to make her feel real shine. Kiss her."

"Boss don't want that.” They both grimaced at the memory of how she'd flinched and shoved at Ace when he'd tried to kiss her. She hadn't said anything more to them that night, just curled up quietly and pretended to sleep. " Must have been for the Immortan only ."

"The kissing, yeah. But the other stuff?"

"Hmm. I'll try that, if she'll let me." Kompass nodded.

Guzzer figured he would, too, if the Boss invited him. It weren't the same as with Marienny, and most of the time he was fine staying on the edges and watching, not resenting others the honour of sexing with the Boss. But it  _ was  _ an honour, a sign of her esteem, and if he'd learned things that might make her feel shine, he was more than keen to give them to the Boss, who deserved to feel shine all the time just as much as Marienny did. 

He thought back at when he'd told the Boss that Marienny had had a son that looked like him, at how the Boss had sounded so pleased for him. Had said that if the boy grew up anything like Guzzer, he'd have a place on any crew he wanted for sure. 

Guzzer planned to live long enough to at least meet the boy as a pup. He wanted to know what a mix of Marienny and himself looked like. 

* * *

* * *

Marienny handed out cups of Aqua Cola, keeping half an eye on the door. Guzzer would be here any moment, looking all clean and handsome, and then she could tell him about having felt her baby kick—

The Ace was looking her direction. He exchanged a few soft words with Lizzybe, who nodded, and then he came toward Marienny. 

She swallowed, looking from his face to the door, hoping against hope—

"Come with me," he told her, leaving no doubt about claiming her. 

He took her to one of the far pallets, sitting down with his back to the rest. Gestured for her to do the same. She felt numb as she complied. 

"He ain't comin'," the Ace said, his throat working as if it cost an effort to say. 

He could be wounded, or fallen out of favour, Marienny told herself, because she didn't want to believe, didn't want to  _ know _ —

"Went out chrome," Ace said on a sigh, and Marienny heard herself make a soft keening sound. "Dunno know that it helps, but it were something to be proud of."

His voice didn't sound right, as if knowing that wasn't helping  _ him  _ like it ought to. 

She slowly curled up around the swell of her stomach. This was wrong, this was all  _ wrong _ , any moment he'd walk in, she'd look up and he'd be in the door, all freshly painted up because he wanted to look nice for her. He'd be giving her that tiny smile that meant he was excited to see her but didn't want to be obvious about it. He'd trace his hands over her swollen belly, something he'd almost not been able to stop himself from doing ever since she'd told him how much she hoped this new baby was also from his seed. 

"I'm sorry," Ace said heavily, lightly bumping her shoulder with his, and she knew it was true

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, don't think I poured on all this pain deliberately for you readers, I totally broke my own heart by getting so attached to a pairing that I'd pre-established as ended. This kinda ran away with me. Ouch my feels.


	22. Problem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Problem: Used in bouldering, the path that a climber takes in order to complete the climb._
> 
> They say you should never make a deal with The Soundless, least ones you can’t keep. There has never been a one who’d gotten away with the better end of a deal unless they wanted themselves to end early and end soft. Renege on a deal with The Soundless and the nightfevers with claim you that same night, if you’re lucky.

Ace looked up when the door opened, watching the wastelander come in. He nodded in greeting and came over to the windowledge, close to where Ace had settled.

“They, ah, they want me to leave," he said quietly, half an eye on Furiosa and the others, so as not to wake them. "in the morning.”

Ace darted his gaze towards him, “ _Who_ wants you to leave?” From checking in with the awed war pups, Ace had found out that this man was the one who’d thrown Immortan Joe to the Wretched, this man was the one who’d kept Furiosa alive, and had so visibly allied himself with Joe's widows. Opposition to him meant the crew would have much more work to do in the Citadel to gain support for Furiosa.

“The girls—,” Max backed away shaking his head, correcting himself, “Toast, and Capable, they asked me. To scout.”

“Oh,” Ace subsided, and glanced out the window. From the women’s accounts, the first of any war parties that might make it around the mountain range would be arriving in six or seven days. Less if they worked their way past the rock fall. “They found you a war buggy?”

The larger wheels and better handling should be able to allow the man to climb steep inclines.

“Mm. And a trailer, see if I can bring back any salvage.”

Ace nodded. The remaining war machines at the Citadel were as injured as the War Boys left behind, they’d need the supplies.

Furiosa stirred as if she'd heard them speak, and by mutual agreement they settled in for the night, postponing any discussion to the morning.

What neither of them saw was a dark form, perched on the smallest of handholds right outside the window, nod to itself and skitter away.

A different one took its place, seconds later.

* * *

Kompass suddenly jerked awake, eyes wide. Ace glanced over from his seat on the edge of the mattress and Austeyr made a sleepy noise of inquiry.

“Something wrong?” Ace asked.

His second only looked back as if unable to recognize him, and then untangled himself from the Boss and slipped out the room. Given the happenings of the last day, Ace found himself mildly gutted at the distrust, but mostly numb.

“I got it,” Austeyr yawned, and then stumbled after the man, Rachet snuffling and then rolling into the warm spot he’d left open next to Furiosa, apparently still asleep. Ace stared at the open spot on the Boss’ other side, the one that Kompass had left, and thought about fitting himself there.

But he didn't know if he’d be welcome, and right now he really, _really_ needed to be sure.

* * *

Kompass hadn’t gone far when Austeyr caught up to him, had made it up to the nearest intersection and then found himself staring at the crossroads blankly. The tunnels spun out around them in six directions, the sound weirdly muffled from racing winds and air pressure and the sensation of settling stone.

“Kompass?”

“How do I, how do I even find them, we usually go through the Fixer,” he’d muttered to himself. Then clenched at his head, “But we _need_ to because the Fixer can’t be trusted.”

“Find who?” Austeyr found himself whispering out of habit; this, the hour of nightfevers and death. “And why do we need to?”

“I’ve been,” Kompass swung around to look at him, and then blinked, then started hauling them down one of the tunnels until they hit an alcove. “I’ve been going around talking to people in the towers. Many of them want to talk to Furiosa personally, even though they claim they’d support her, and you know she’s not ready for that. And…” He looked around them.

“And…?” Austeyr asked leadingly.

“I don’t trust the Fixer,” Kompass said quietly and blew out a breath, “He wants no changes and with the things that happened at Tenday? With this new crew of Furiosa’s? _Change is coming_.”

He released Austeyrs arm and started pacing, ticking off the points as he knew them, “Corpus is the biggest concern; you weren’t here for the council meeting and apparently Furiosa was well enough to fight until Corpus’ men made her tear some stitches open and she got all fevered. Black and Green thumbs are all waiting on meetings with Furiosa, or at least making a show of wanting to talk to her directly. There’s a couple others that still watching for what happens when the war parties return; they'll go the way or whoever comes out on top. Bastards seem to only care about their own hides. And I can’t find where the Gatekeepers are holed up.” He raised his eyes to Austeyr, “I wish Morsov was here, he’d know what to do with this, we need to get to the,” and his voice dropped even lower, “the Soundless before the Fixer does, try to commit them on our side.”

“Because the War pups and most Warboys are for Furiosa?” Austeyr questioned.

“Not only that, but the green and the water are held by the widows and the milkers,” Kompass told him. “But some of the rare parts we need, wire for the windmills and lights, new tires and rubbers for the rigs, lead for our pipes; all those items are smuggled in through the Soundless— let alone what they can do on the regular,” he shuddered. “If they make War on the Boss—”

“—it’d tear the Citadel apart,” Austeyr answered.

Kompass nodded miserably.

“Well, how do we find them then?”

They stared at each other.

* * *

_They say you should never make a deal with The Soundless, least ones you can’t keep. There has never been a one who’d gotten away with the better end of a deal unless they wanted themselves to end early and end soft. Renege on a deal with The Soundless and the nightfevers with claim you that same night, if you’re lucky._

_There are stories of the ones who aren’t lucky; the ones who’d boasted of getting the best of a deal, and started choking mid-boast to spit out pieces of their lungs. The ones who ran, after stealing from an exchange, and found themselves falling to their deaths against the ground below, joints twisted awry and deformed. The ones who gave false payment and wake up with a new scar and things missing from their belly. Like a liver._

_Sometimes even if you deal fairly the payment is deemed not enough, and your most precious thing (and it is_ _**always** _ _the most precious thing) will disappear. Whisper their name to the wrong person and you’ll die the softest, sweetest death you can imagine._

_No one has ever seen their faces, or heard their voices, or even touched one, caught one. They crawl like smoke and shadows up the sides of the Citadel and slip in where the light don’t reach._

* * *

At this point they were just wandering down the hallways, picking the ones that skirt the cliffs instead of the sleep areas, Kompass quietly catching Austeyr up on the events of the past three days, stumbling a little on recounting the happenings during the Remembering.

“That’s how you found out, huh,” Austeyr murmured.

“Or at least when it fully hit,” Kompass said glumly, then braced himself and admitted to one of the few crewmates he had left, “I wish I’d known, somehow, I wish I hadn’t—” all the things he wished he’d hadn’t done shoved up against each other in his throat and nothing came out due to all of them being crushed there.

“—wish you hadn’t said some things?” the lancer guessed.

And Kompass nodded mutely.

“Think more ‘n one of us feels like that, ey?” Austeyr crashed his shoulder companionably against his, but Kompass just grunts and keeps walking.

“You didn’t seem to have much trouble.”

“Ah well,” the was the sound of a neck cracking and a bit of scratching, “when you’d left for Tenday, Ace and that wastelander had a bit of a chat so I was alone with the Boss while.... while she said some things.”

Kompass slammed to a stop and turned to the other warboy, “What ‘things’?”

“She… I think she would’ve never said such a thing had she not been fevered but,” Austeyr shrugged uncomfortably, “I think she thought it was back when she was still a wife of Joe’s.”

Kompass felt everything in him still, muscles and breath and heartbeat.

“She asked me to help her hide the blood, something about losing the baby,” Austeyr’s voice dropped even lower, “And you know how she is; it must’ve been a lot, for her to ask for help.” He takes a deep breath, “She was so scared.”

It was nothing Kompass hadn’t put together with memory of the scarring on Furiosa’s belly and the names Remembered by the breeders but to hear it laid out like that, by crew, made it yet another level of true. And the worst of it was there was nothing he could _do_ ; no one he could pull away from her, no one he could unWitness. Joe had been their Redeemer for all those many days, they’ve Witnessed him already, many times. Kompass _still_ reflexively thought of the good that Joe did them all and the knowledge that _all this time_ while they cheered his name Furiosa might’ve been bleeding with the sound of it, this... clawed at him.

“What can we even _do_?” Austeyr muttered as if reading his mind, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes, rubbing, “It’s already happened.”

“Can’t spike the dead,” Kompass reminded himself, letting out a frustrated sigh, “and she’s chosen new crew, maybe. Even though I still don’t know how we’re all to work together.”

“And we still need to find _Them_.”

“Find who?” a new voice popped out. Kompass stared at the form that melted out of the shadows until a name popped up in his memory. ‘Deka,’ the Wretched representative at that Council meeting.

“Hey it’s you,” Austeyr said in surprise, “I remember you from when I first arrived.”

Deka gave the other warboy a long look and then shook her head, “Nevermind that, find who?”

“You probably won’t know them,” Kompass felt irritated, “they’re powerful people dealing in priceless things and they don’t show their face to any, let alone a Wretc—”

“Oh _them_ ,” Deka interrupted. And turned abruptly to go down a hallway.

They watched her go, stupefied.

She turned back to them at the next intersection, “Oi, do I need t’wait for you to take a leak?”

Kompass caught up even as Austeyr let out of bark of laughter. This might be a dead end but it’s the only thing they’ve got at the moment.

* * *

It’s not a dead end.

Kompass needs to shave. The short hairs new-grown at the back of his neck are upright with his alarm and itch like crazy. The tiny bead of sweat working it’s way down is also irritating, and so is the feeling that he should not move, he should not twitch, he should not shift, and they’ll catch that weakness because he’s standing under a predator’s eyes.

Even if he can’t make out eyes.

Deka had led them back up the corridor to a well-travelled passage, a place they’ve both walked by several times, where there’d been an alcove to an air vent that funneled the groans of the windmills down to the hallways. Their eyes had grown wide when she’d crawled up the air vent as it angled diagonally upwards and then… disappeared.

“You boys comin’?”

They scrambled after, best they could, getting scratched up by rock through a passage that really hadn’t been created with their shoulders in mind, perhaps even purposefully made so narrow. One only had to wedge into the vent a little before there was a downward opening, and Kompass and then Aus dropped through it.

It was a small room, that they could barely make out in the dim starlight, open to the air on the far end. The opening was curtained by a thick fall that rustled like greenery. Deka moved towards it, but waved them back when they tried to follow. When she reached the edge, she picked up a triangular wedge of stone and started tapping along the edge until she found a section that seemed to resonate and echo more than the rest. And then she started tapping at it in what seems an aimless pattern, pausing occasionally to press her ear against the stone.

They’d almost grown bored with watching her, and Kompass had turned to Austeyr to say they should leave, when suddenly two dark forms stood by the entrance, leaves barely rustling with their passage, one tall, one short.

“Archive,” Deka bowed, “Didn’t think you’d arrive, yourself. I welcome both you and your Apprentice.”

As usual, The Soundless were completely covered and cowled, featureless. They tilted their heads in acknowledgement at Deka and then turned towards the Warboys.

And seemed to stare for an exceptionally long time.

“Ah,” Deka caught herself, having also been staring, “Apologies, this is Austeyr, and that one’s Kompass. They’re of Furiosa’s crew and spoke of wanting to talk with you directly.”

The black robed figures kept their silence and continued looking. And that’s when the silence grew oppressive. Kompass has no idea of the protocol, or how not to offend. He breathed lightly trying to figure out his words and when and where to begin. They’ve always gone through the Fixer and never met these men before, though from what little he knows, the Archive is ancient. Maybe even the _original_ Soundless, having seen and caused the passing of countless half-lives.

Sometime between his blinks, the Soundless moved closer to them.

He flinched as the Archive brought both gloved hands up, but the Soundless only started folding them together in sharp patterns, ending in a brief wave that even Kompass understood as marking the previous gestures as a question, directed towards him.

“ ‘For… what reason do you come’ ?” Deka translated slowly, looking towards the Soundless, who’d nodded.

“For Furiosa,” Kompass replied.

“For the _Citadel_ ,” Austeyr added, “We all know that Joe is dead by her hand, and she’s come back to claim all that was his. We seek the best for everyone living in these towers.”

“ ‘Everyone’ ?” The Archive signed.

“Maybe not the Fixer,” Kompass muttered, glancing down for an irresponsible moment, because when he looked up again the Apprentice had disappeared. He looked around quickly but couldn’t see him and he almost took a step back. It made his hackles rise, “And maybe not anyone who threatens us.”

“Not,” Austeyr said, lazily, “That we think you a threat,” the respect in his voice made it vague whether the statement was an insult or an acknowledgement of allies. Kompass found himself impressed. “But I’m sure you’ve heard we have incoming.”

“ ‘There has _already_ been arrivals’,” somehow the hands themselves were sarcastic, “ ‘Such as yourself, and that feral.’ “

“Do you think he is a threat?” Austeyr shot back.

“ ‘As an unloaded gun is to its wielder.’ “

Even as Kompass tried to decipher the ‘tone’ of the hands, Austeyr was already saying, “You’ve heard of their plans to have him scout then.”

“ ‘He doesn’t seem the best… equipped for it.’ “ The Archive threw the words out as if washing themselves of it, “ ‘Most likely he will run off with the supplies. And if he doesn’t, he’ll get run down by survivors or the carrion eaters of the wastes. It speaks little of your judgement.’ “

“I can vouch for him,” Austeyr insisted, and slid into thoughtfulness with nary a pause, “ _But_ if you were invested in his success, it might do with a little show of support. Given that supporting him means supporting Furiosa.”

The Archive seemed taken aback and it took Kompass a moment to understand why; they’ve revealed their interest in the wastelander, and then expressed concern that he wouldn’t be effective at his task. Which meant that they were interested in his succeeding, and that they saw merit in what Furiosa’s crew had been attempting. But asking them so blatantly for an _item_ of support would visibly tie the Soundless to Furiosa, a public statement.

“ ‘Support something so brittle?’ “

“If you consider brittle to be someone who’d helped Furiosa defeat the Immortan Joe, and revive her. Someone who by accounts near single-handledly took out fleets of war boys attacking the Rig. Who was bestowed an Imperator’s scarf by Furiosa herself.”

“ ‘She gave him a scarf?’ “

“Saw it myself. Where in the Wasteland could he have gotten something so black?”

The hands folded against each other for a moment in thought.

Kompass saw the advantage and clearly Austeyr did too because he followed it up, “The scouting should take him through the canyon and a ways beyond it, just enough to get us some numbers, see how many survivors of the crash, maybe get the Citadel some salvage and supplies.”

“ ‘That blasted Joe. Used up most the Citadel’s stores just to chase that girl down.’ “ The Archive seemed to claw his words out, but continued, “ ‘There’d be survivors of the crash, too many left from here for there not to be. The feral will get overwhelmed.’ “

“He can hold his own in a fight, but more importantly,” Austeyr took a breath, “I don’t think he’ll have to. He stopped me from fighting him with maybe twenty words and some grunts. He has the scarf; you know how well respected our crew is, and he’s all but inducted. He’ll leave with a crew’s chrome.”

“ ‘And if he still fails?’ ”

Austeyr’s smile grew sideways and wry, “I will take the fall, and no one else.”

Kompass’ gut wrenched, the lancer was all but offering to die soft.

“ ‘And if he succeeds?’ ”

“You will be part of his success, if you showed support.”

The Archive hummed thoughtfully and brought his hand up. The dark form seemed to suddenly split as the black-robed Apprentice stepped out from the Archive’s shadow ( _but from where?_ ) and Kompass tried not to flinch.

Apprentice placed something in Archive’s palm.

“ ‘I think your feral could use this little something.’ ”

Apprentice handed over whatever it was to Deka, who’d passed it to Austeyr in turn. Kompass saw it was a small round tin, and when Austeyr opened it up and smelled it, his eyes grew wide.

“This is more than just _support_ .” Austeyr hissed, and Kompass agreed if it was what he thought it was. Maybe a gun, some goggles, those would make sense, not this thing that would put them into _debt_ …

Kompass grew cold with the realization, of the near trick, of how much they would be beholden if they give nothing in trade, “What do we owe for this?”

“ ‘Simply an audience with your Imperator, a… fair _hearing_ of our interests. But soon.’ “ It frankly sounded like slime to Kompass’ ear.

“Can’t you talk to her yourselves?” Austeyr said, closing up the tin and trying to give it back to Deka, who backed away.

“ ‘We find her a little intractable.’ ”

Kompass is not surprised that Furiosa would not wish to deal with these shadows; she’d always seemed strong with her convictions and principles, and these men come off like the Fixer. Determined to get their own way with sideways talk. He wondered how much of their entire conversation was to get them to this point, how much they’ve been played into this ambush, “And how can we even trust this is what you say it is, what if this was poison?” What if they’d thought to use it for Furiosa?

“Trust it,” Austeyr said not taking his eyes from the Soundless.

“How do you know?”

“ ‘This one knows contraband ‘,” even the hand gesture looks amused.

“If it works false then all they’d achieve during their meeting will go sour when the wastelander doesn’t come back,” Austeyr said, “The whole reason why they’re trading this is because Furiosa isn’t willing to deal with them at all. And they need her to help defend the Citadel.” The lancer was watching the Soundless closely.

“ ‘If she wasn’t so petty we’d have more dealings through the years.’ “ The Ancient admitted.

“Petty!” That does not sound like the Boss Kompass knew, even considering recent revelations.

“ ‘Petty, hah, yes, small-visioned, you will see.’ “ The Archive seemed to focus, uncomfortable sharp, “ ‘Are we agreed then? A meeting with Furiosa where you open her ears to us if the feral appears again on the horizon? We shall see to more support if he succeeds.’ ”

Kompass wonders why does the Soundless make it sound like they know her better than crew? It makes him shiver, uncertain. It makes him want to double check her room and the hallways around it. And head back right away to check in.

Austeyr looked at Kompass and though they look at each other sick with the idea of allowing this man made of nightfever into the Boss’ presence, but here in front of them was what they were looking for: support thrown in for their side. Support for the decisions Furiosa’s women were making, for the people that Furiosa’s supporting, enough that once reports get back to the Fixer it should give him enough pause to not make the Citadel make War on itself.

They both nod to the Soundless, “Agreed.”

* * *

As they were walking back to the Imperator’s quarters, Deka having slipped away quickly soon after, Kompass can’t help but think about how well Austeyr handled that; he’d known the lancer was good with talking and with people but never suspected something like what he’d just seen, how rapidly the warboy had seen and understood and responded. “How do you know they weren’t lying, that they even care about that wastelander succeeding?”

“They’re protecting something,” Austeyr replied, “something in the Citadel; the war parties made his hands nervous.”

“And you’re sure the wastelander won’t fail?” Kompass pressed, because the war boy was betting a soft death on his success. Moreover, they were so short on crew that they needed all hands, and ones they know they can trust. Ones that they know are talented, that understand, and that can _make_ people understand. Kompass thought about how quickly Austeyr got all the things that the rest of crew had been struggling with these past couple days and even though it made him uncomfortable jealous and a bit ashamed, he found it a relief that the war boy was there for Furiosa when she’d dreamt of her past, and here for Furiosa when things needed bargaining. That Austeyr offered to take the wastelander’s failure on himself—

“Pretty sure it’ll be fine, he’s strong.” Aus hummed and shrugged, “We’d be fighting two fronts, from within and from the war parties, if he fails anyway. If they gun for me first then that means they’d be distracted. I’ll make sure to go out historic, take some of them with me,” a short laugh, “well best I can do to make myself a little useful.”

Kompass slowed down a little and stared at the back of Austeyr’s head. The war boy’s words made sense but they made his gut roil all the same, and he felt so incredibly angry suddenly.

He didn’t understand why.

* * *

Max darts a glance at Furiosa, away from the sight of the sun cracking itself open on the edge of the desert, as she leans against Austeyr and accepting yet another bottle of mother’s milk being pressed onto her by an insistent Rachet. Her face is unamused as she smells the liquid and darts her gaze at the elder who heals. The Nightingale only shrugs with a face that says, _what can you do?_ and _you need rest, you know better_. Furiosa's mouth twists as she drinks sullenly.

Ace finds himself exchanging a commiserating look with this wasteland stray, who then squints at him as if weighing him. Tilts his head, then, face satisfied.

The door opens and Austeyr walks in with a pack and Max moves forward to take it from him. The moment seems to hang as he looks towards Furiosa and she sets down the milk. She quirks her mouth a little, and he furrows his brows at her and tilts his head while he sweeps out a hand gesture; and her shoulders shake as if he’d told a joke. He nods at it.

She nods back.

And he leaves.

“What—,” the Ace feels like he’s reeling. “What just…”

“ _We keep going_ ,” Furiosa replies as if quoting the wastelander though they exchanged no words, grimly slamming back the rest of the milk and resignedly settles into a position to sleep. “He has things to do. Maybe getting some supplies.”

Ace knows for a fact that the sisters haven’t wanted to bother Furiosa with their concerns, that everyone wanted her rested and healed. How did this feral convey all that wordlessly... how in only three days did he create this easy language with Furiosa; while Ace, despite knowing her for many thousanddays, still finds himself _reeling_ for how to respond to misreading her so badly for all of those thousand days..

Since she couldn't trust in him, maybe she's chosen the Wastelander as her new Ace?

His wheels feel come off.

* * *

Austeyr followed Max down to the buggy they were lending him, up until Max was right in front of the vehicle. The stocky war boy from Furiosa’s crew was checking it over, frown on his face, not paying them any attention.

Max gave Austeyr a pointed look, _are you trying to get an invite, because you’re needed here._

Austeyr just shook his head, “Aren’t you gonna check the bag?”

Max raised an eyebrow and riffled through it, food mostly, a couple canisters of water, a couple bullets that fit his gear— which Max furrowed his head at— a can which rattled when he shook it, and a small flat round tin of what is labeled as Shoe Polish. He blinked. Pulled the can and the tin out.

He shook the can at Austeyr in question and the man just shrugged.

Looked a bit uncomfortable as he says, “Chrome, in case—”

Max didn't know how to feel about that, but he understood the stuff was highly valued and meant well, so he just nodded in acknowledgement and thanks. When he carefully unscrewed the lid of the flat tin he was met with the sight of a mud-colored cream that smelled green and strange. He glanced up and Austeyr was glancing up and around, his large hands closing around Max’s and hiding the sight of the cream away.

“Hey, be careful with that, you don’t know what I had to—” Austeyr breathed deep, and frustrated, as he takes the tin out of Max’s hands and closes it. “Look, I’ve heard the buzz and chances are you may be meeting up with the war party. Where’s that scarf the Boss gave ya?”

Max tugs it out of his jacket, bemused.

“Wear it. Tell them who gave it to you if they ask.” Austeyr looked around them and lowered his voice, “There’d always been this - I guess you can say envy - towards our crew. Warboys might fall in if they hear you’re favored,” an uncertain shrug, “I mean they weren’t all for Furiosa but, they most were. Or seemed to.”

Max lifted up the can with a questioning sound, and Austeyr nodded.

“All Warboys have one.”

Huh, Max lifted the tin, “And this?”

“Shh—!” Austeyr gestured at him to tone it down, and his next words were hushed. “That is. Well you’re not supposed to have that. Contraband. But if you’re bringing back War Boys like you did me...” He shifted, awkward. “It… tempers pain. Heals wounds quicker. We’re not supposed to use, I mean it’s made from an incredible amount of, it’s _frivolous_ — ”

Max had never seen words fail the other man so completely, not when the lancer was pressed into the sand, not when he’d thought he’d lost and was arguing his last chance to make it back to the Citadel.

“But if you use it, tell them it’s from the… the Soundless.”

Max opened his mouth to ask but a hand was slapped across it.

“Don’t you say their name here,” Aus’ eyes darted around, “They call you… well, I don’t have a hold of what they think of you yet, don’t draw attention.” He shook Max lightly, hand still pressed against his mouth, then let him go. “It should help establish you, with the rest of the warboys. Make them more willing to listen. Use the extra food, too, the provisions.”

Max nodded at this. Luring strays from the wastes was a process he was intimately familiar with now, from both sides.

Austeyr stepped back and looked the buggy over and hummed. Said towards it, kind of uselessly, “Hurry back. They say maybe six more days until the first of the war parties start arriving from around the mountains.”

“Don’t want two fronts,” Max agreed. The stocky war boy looked up from the buggy at that and his eyes were narrowed.

“No.” Austeyr cleared his throat, “I’ve never seen the Boss so— she’s so winded. There used to be nineteen of us. Now there’s four.”

Max nodded and stilled as Austeyr leaned in again, watched and weighed him, and then conked his forehead against his own.

“Maybe five. So hurry back.”

Max either nodded again or shook his head, he can’t quite tell, a bit dazed. Before he knew it, he’d found himself headbutted again by the other war boy, who’d swept out with a muttered intense command, “ _Succeed_.”

Austeyr was already leaving the garage and Max glanced down at the scarf that’s left in his hand and swung it around his neck. Checked that the pack was secured to the trailer, and started up the buggy, hopping on.

He left the Citadel, watching his path but with his mind still left at the garage wondering what all that was.


	23. Merkel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Merkel: To retrieve another climbers gear because they are unable to or because it would be more convenient._
> 
> “Joe’s gotta be dead,” he said uneasily. “Means he’s not...not Immortan, right?”
> 
> Gilly still wasn’t sure if he meant ‘Immortan’ as the title, or as actually immortal. Maybe both. She nodded cautiously, “Reckon so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some non-graphic rape/non-con elements in this one, because the Organic Mechanic is a skeevy dude. 
> 
> Also some graphic imagery

Gilly took a step back to let one of the Warboys shuffle past through the narrow space between the wreck and the rock wall of the canyon. He didn’t acknowledge her - some of them still didn’t even after.. she wasn’t sure how many days. Three? Four?

She followed him with her eyes, and yes, of course - he was on his way to the makeshift shrine the Warboys had built around a harpoon, a breathing mask with horse teeth, and a bloody lower jaw. The boys who could limp or crawl there were coming together for one of their regular sessions of chanting “Vee-eight!”

Their white paint was wearing off, but they used motor grease from the wrecks to paint their black markings. The sight of them still made Gilly and Vicks twitch.

Another boy limped toward her, but paused at a respectful distance. Paint worn off, his skin was the dark brown the earth of the Green Place had been. He’d been one of the drummers - Treb, she thought his name was.

“Don’t you want to go?” she nodded toward the others.

“Joe’s gotta be dead,” he said uneasily. “Means he’s not... not _Immortan_ , right?”

Gilly still wasn’t sure if he meant ‘Immortan’ as the title, or as actually immortal. Maybe both. She nodded cautiously, “Reckon so.”

“Miss Giddy says Imperator Furiosa must be Immortan now,” he says, as if trying the thought.

“Yeah.” Mothers, she hoped so. Furiosa had been badly hurt, last Gilly had seen her, but Gale had been with them, and Janey too. If they’d actually managed to take the bloody Citadel, this might all have been worth it.

“ Organic says it’s better for us if she ain’t,” the young man considered with a strange ambivalent note . “Says the breeders’ll be softer,  Citadel easier to claim from them .”

_ Not with Janey to back them up _ , Gilly thought privately.  _ And not if we manage to make it there.  _ Vicks was hurt, but she’d only needed to be in the presence of the Organic Mechanic for a minute before deciding she didn’t want his kinda care.

“ And what do  _ you  _ think?”

The drummer looked surprised, as if he hadn’t considered that.

“Furiosa’s crew’s the shinest, ain’t it?” he finally said, giving a furtive look around. “Warboys always tryin’ to catch her eye. She take good care of’em, make sure they die historic.”

Gilly decided not to think too much about what that meant.

The young man nodded to himself as if reaching a conclusion. “If Furiosa’s Immortan, it’ll be like we’re all on her crew, right?”

He turned to look down the canyon and Gilly did too. There was a strange pattern to the movements of the Warboys, and she couldn’t read them yet like she could read the way sand throws up behind a bike or a car, the way the folds of cloth hide a weapon, the way that the patterns of crows in the sky shift as they move from attack to defense.

_ Defensive,  _ Gilly realized,  _ that’s what it was _ . The movements of those white-smudged bodies moved like crows did when Valkyrie hunted, moving close together for safety but then splitting apart to leave the weak defenseless. Alone.

_ But who' _ _ s  _ _ hunting? Who or what makes these men act like prey? _

* * *

The desert falls away behind Max, the clicks marking distance like Old World machineries that marked time. Night is opened above him, an expanding bellows, and he feels it like the first breath after surfacing from a dream.

(his dreams are never good)

(his dreams are full of hands covering his face, of his name in accusation, of the wheeze of dying breaths both old and young and Furiosa )

(his dreams are hallways he can never navigate, and he thinks that there is a word for what these sleep hauntings actually are… but he can’t find the word, he reaches but there’s only a blank. much like when he reaches for himself)

He bears gifts both direct and indirect, in the trailer to the buggy he’s driving. They come from three; from a War Boy, from those the War Boy refused to name, and from–

“ _Here”, the woman of plenty pressed the two large thermos into Max’s hands as he stared at them blankly. He had startled when she’d appeared suddenly around a hallway, skin like twilight dunes, and he’d almost struck her, so why… “They’re insulated, should keep our milk for at least a day or so, more if you shade them from the sun.”_

_ Max knew about thermoses, but he hadn’t seen any similar containers himself for a long long time. They were unfathomably useful, and incredibly rare. He knew that in any other situation, people would have their heads caved in to possess such things, limbs scattered, face mauled. He looked up at the milker’s night eyes in confusion. _

“ _Fluid for fluid, isn’t that right? Heard you were the bloodbag that propped Furiosa up,” she said gently. “Consider this thanks.”_

_ He shrugged uncomfortably. His back itched. Max muttered, “You let down the water.” It was thanks enough, the mob of people might have been overwhelming had they not done so, with no time to let the lift rise, and no time for Max himself to slip off. _

_ The milker just shook her head sharply, “We’d had control of the water for awhile but then a pair of Gatekeepers stormed in. They had their poles and while we had the numbers…” she looked away, seemed frustrated. “Some of us were willing to fight, but the blades at the end of the things had reach. We didn’t– didn’t know how to get past them.” _

_ Max squinted, and made a questioning noise. _

“ _Furiosa,” the milker said simply, voice grateful but also hard. It was from self-directed anger; Max knew the sound. “She took them down and made it look easy but the old ones she brought back? Vuvalini, they call themselves?”_

_ He nodded at her prompting. _

“ _One of them knows fixing bodies. They said it aggravated her wounds.”_

_ Max made a noise of understanding then, he’d wondered how Furiosa went from standing triumphant on the lift to being all but bed-ridden. He should have stayed longer, maybe. He should have giving her more of his blood. He– He’d met the milker’s eyes with difficulty but only found a matching ‘should have done’ in her eyes. _

“ _She could have kept control of the room even then, like we failed to do. Kept it for herself. Instead she walked away.” A noise of complete disbelief, “She walked away from the water and the milk; gave it to us, and said we knew it best. Had one of the Vuvalini help secure the room with some of the Pups. For us.”_

_ A long slow breath heaved out and she stared at him with jaw tight. “Heard you gave Furiosa the blood to allow her to do that. Heard you going out on a request from one of those widows that she’d took for her own, who’re doing the same as she is: letting us dispense both water and milk.“ _

_ She poked at the thermos and Max almost stumbled from the force of it. “So take this. I’m ‘dispensing.’ Call it trade, if you must. And if you bring them back, we’ll refill them.” _

_ Max had given a long slow blink and grunted again, still uncertain whether to return the gift, but hands already curling around the thermoses, not knowing what to say. _

_ The milker only snorted, exasperated at his confusion, “Name’s Britt, if you care.” _

“ _Ahh,” Max shuffled, looked around at the walls around them, looked down at his hands, looked at the containers of milk. “It’s, um. Max.”_

“ _Max.” She repeated, and the sound of his name didn’t come with accusation, when he’d expected it to._

_ He didn’t know what to do with that. _

_ He’d nodded shakily, and left for Furiosa’s room. He was late, anyway. _

Max drives as if he could leave memories behind him.

(it never works)

The walls of the canyons pull close.

  
  


* * *

“Mothers, but these boys are fucked up in the head,” Gilly sighed. She slumped into the driver’s seat of the wrecked car they’d claimed for themselves. Vicks gave her a steady look from the passenger’s, which she wasn’t able to leave much because of her injured knee.

“Tell me about it. I told these two boys I've been sitting with, Kukri and Razor, to stop eating potatoes raw and put them at the edge of the fire, and you’d think I’d told them to burn them to charcoal.”

“Did they do it though?”

“After the History Women confirmed it,” Vicks quirked a grin. “Then it was all ‘so shine’ and ‘McFeasting’ and ‘Fit for Valhalla’.”

They were Repair Boys, apparently, and they were injured enough to be immobilised but well enough to be deeply frustrated by not being able to help. Vicks had given them Furiosa's metal arm to repair what they could, which seemed to help them feel useful, even though their cursing now focused on not having the right spares or tools.

She sobered. “You look like you had a harder time.”

“Had another ask for me when he was dyin’,” Gilly explained. “They’re all terrified of ‘dying soft’ and that 'doctor’ just dumps 'em under a rock ledge. Nobody was willing to sit with him, so he wanted me to witness him.”

“You sat with him?”

Gilly nodded. “I think I was the only one he was willing to show he was afraid. Told him one of the old stories to make it easier for him. He gave me this–”

She pulled a small silver cannister from her pocket. They both looked at it and sighed.

“Not sure how a place with men this fucked in the head could be a new Green Place,” Vicks said eventually.

“Some of 'em don’t seem so bad. That drummer lad’s got a head on his shoulders, just ain’t used to using it. Like that warboy that came with Furiosa and the girls.”

“Mm. I suppose. Those repair boys are— there's potential there.” She'd also realised that the scars on Razor's chest meant that he was probably what the Vuvalini would have called a Daughterson. That was interesting; she hadn't expected to find people such as him among the Warboys. From a distance they'd looked like a uniform, homicidal, mouth-frothing mob, ready to tear apart anything that wasn't like them.

“We're nearly ready to try to blow the blockade, see if we can get something driveable to the other side. The plan is to take one of us with them to the Citadel.”

“To appease Furiosa, or as hostage?”

Gilly huffed a breath. “Either, depending on their reception, I guess.”

  
  


* * *

_ Earlier: _

  
  


“What’s a rabbit though?” Rotor interrupted the old breeder. Well, he supposed she weren’t breeding no more. Wasteland women always did seem twice as vicious as the men, and nothing to compare to those they’d had back at the Citadel. Perhaps that was why Furiosa had chosen these ones for crew, even if as a full-life this Gilly appeared to be running quick towards the point where no repair would help.

Rotor, half-life that he was, rested at that point so he should know. He breathed careful, but still his chest hurt, his shoulder hurt, the mangle that was left of his legs hurt. His wounds couldn't seem to stop bleeding.

He asked for one of Furiosa’s crew then, when everyone else turned away. The Imperator had never let anyone mess with her men, he’d hardly think the new order at the Citadel wouldn’t extend to these women she’d taken in.

More importantly?

Gilly… she looked at him. Full in the face instead of eyes averted, even as his life was leaking out between them.

Rotor thought she might remember him enough to carry the story back to the Citadel, even if she still didn’t seem to understand what a Witnessing even was. It burned his face and his gut that he was sneaking this honor, but he couldn't help himself. He knew that the next time he sleeps he won’t wake up, and he had to reach for  _ something _ .

“A rabbit? Well, its like a small animal that skitters across the desert. It has fur on it… hair,” Gilly corrected when she saw his confusion. “Keeper had most of the skulls of animals past.”

“Is it like a lizard?” Rotor asked doubtfully.

Something strange crossed the woman’s face and he found the expression funny. Rotor chuckled a little and then immediately regretted it for the pain that lanced through his chest. His sight grew black for a frightening moment but he was drawn back by the feel of a hand on his shoulder.

He tried to focus on her face and blinked the tears away from his eyes and hoped the woman didn’t notice his weakness.

Gilly gently wiped at the corner of his eye, and he jerked away from her, shoulders tight, eyes closing against the regret and the deepening shame.

“I guess we can call it a lizard for today,” she murmured quietly. Then raised her voice a little, “So this lizard was made of cloth and stuffing and given to one of the… one of the Pups. A velveteen lizard.”

“ _ Velveteen _ ?” Rotor scoffed around the thick in his voice, dismissively, “sounds soft.”

“Yes,” she replied, unwinding a bit of cloth from around her neck, one hidden away between other layers, “It is.” She wound the cloth once around his palm and then closed his fingers around it with her own.

_ Oh. _ It felt like short bristles, like war pup hair before it was shorn.

“This Pup, at first he was only drawn towards his machine toys, his shinier things, but by and by he’d come to appreciate his velveteen lizard.”

Rotor looked his question up at her.  _ Why? _

“Because velveteen is strong, not brittle. His machines broke on him, crashed, snapped; and cloth bends.” Her fingers are warm around his. “When the Pup threw his lizard around the lizard stayed in one piece; he’d smashed it, slept on it, brought it with him on all his explorations. And soon he thought that this lizard is Real.”

“ ’s just cloth though,” Rotor muttered sullenly, “just something held together with stitches.“

"And machines aren’t, with nuts and bolts?” Gilly waved it aside with a free hand, “Anyways, machines can’t be Real.”

“ What even is 'Real’ then?” he bursts out “How can the lizard even  _ become _ it, if— if even a machine can’t?”

For Rotor like for all War Boys, to be machine was their highest of aspirations.  _ Machines were infallible _ , Rotor thinks,  _ the engine and the holy V8 and that of— _

That of the War Rig, and the Doof Wagon, and all those cars twisted up at the base of the canyons.

Twisted up like his own body, unspooling around him.

“ 'Real isn’t how you are made’,” Gilly said with the air of a quote, of a Remembering, “ 'It’s a thing that happens to you.’ ”

Rotor closed his eyes in a long blink, “A thing that hurts, innit it right?”

“Sometimes,” Gilly agreed, squeezing his hand, “That’s life though, when you are Real. We all become it bit by bit. But it doesn’t happen if you’re not strong, if you’re not soft, if you’re not sturdy.”

“ But how can y'be all of those at  _ once _ ?” he wheezed out. It’s getting hard to catch his breath.

“You are all that right now, aren’t you?” Gilly asked him with piercing eyes, “No one else of all these Boys has had the strength to ask for me. And I will Witness you as I have kept all those of my sisters who’ve fallen these past days.”

She made a strange gesture then, as if reaching out to touch these sisters and bring them to her chest. Her heart. As if she’s keeping them, and have kept them, and Rotor has the sudden terrible shock of realizing and recognizing that she knew what honor he’d been thieving. Had known even before she’d started speaking.

“I…” Rotor tried to speak, failed, watched as the dark grew at the edges of his sight with panic, scrambled with his free hand at his pants for— “Do y'think that I could be—”

He can’t ask it, he didn’t have the right. Or the time. Rotor glanced down at his hand, at the canister he’d pulled out, to chrome his grill.

_ (“Anyways, machines can’t be Real.”) _

He closed his fingers around it and pressed it at the woman with his fading vision. “Keep it; if yer Crew, y'should have one.”

Gilly’s fingers fall away from him to catch it, and it’s  _ fine _ , he’s finding it hard to maintain his grip anyway.

“What happens though?” Rotor whispered with the last of his strength, sightless, very cold, “To th’lizard, what…”

He distantly felt a warm hand on his forehead, straining to hear her response.

And at last the whisper came and followed him down into the darkness, “he lived again…”

_ Oh _ , was his last thought.

* * *

* * *

Ace heard the commotion in the hallway and was at the door, knife drawn, before anybody could touch it. It was not an attack though, but one of the older warpups the council used as runners.

"Miss Gale says to come to the younger pup dens right away."

Ace looked back at the Boss. She had been resentfully tinkering with the replacement arm, Rachet nearby to occasionally hold something for her. She was looking at him, putting her work aside.

"Did she ask for me or the Imperator?"

"Only the Ace," the pup quoted, wilting under the Boss' glare. "Not Fu-Furiosa."

Clearly annoyed, she picked her work back up and ignored Ace as he left with the pup.

The dens were filled to capacity with pups, with breeders, with milking mothers, with the Sisters - everybody speaking loudly, pups crying, breeders calling out names. Ace watched as a woman tried to wipe away the facepaint of a howling, struggling pup.

"What in the Bleeding Buzzard sphincter is going on?"

He hadn't meant to speak so loud, but the pups, attuned to the warboy voices of their minders, stilled as once and turned to him, and then everybody else did too. Then they all began to speak at once. Ace spotted Miss Gale coming toward him together with Capable. He stepped into the hallway so he would actually be able to hear them.

"We discovered that the white paint is lead," Miss Gale said, looking harried. "It's making you all sick, so we wanted to—"

Ace made a startled hand motion, and she nodded, paused, and seemed to take a moment to read his confusion. "Lead builds up in your body. It's a slow poison in the amounts you're using, but it's probably contribution to this 'half life' business."

"I'm not sick," Ace said, but he heard the uncertainty in his own words.

"Headaches? Trouble sleeping? Trouble goin' to the dunny? Agressio—" Gale cut herself off. "It might even cause the lumps."

Ace stared at her. _Was it true? How could he know?_ "Whatcha trying to do then?"

Gale looked impossibly weary, and Ace could sympathise. "We were just going to talk to everybody about not putting on new paint when it wore off."

"If it's very important to you, we can look for something else to make white paint of," Capable added. "But then the mothers got wind of the plan and…" she gestured vaguely. "The brakes came off. They want to see their children."

"For the pups Earning their paint is a rite of passage.” Ace hesitated, but these were Furiosa’s favored, he couldn't keep it from them. “They think you're takin' that away from them and sending them back to the breeders quarters."

He himself felt an uneasy coil of agreement with those words. If they wanted to take away everything the warboys' lives hinged on, he couldn't see how the Citadel would become what Furiosa wanted.

Gale tipped her head back into her neck and groaned. "Great Mighty Mother, I thought it might be somethin' like that."

"Can you help? Will you help?" Capable asked him, her eyes huge and worried, and Ace tried not to growl, because he had no choice, did he? Furiosa had put these people in charge and it was his task to make their work as easy as possible. Whether he believed or agreed had little clout in the matter. He just wished they'd run these things by Furiosa or him or Kompass before it became this giant mess.

He turned back to the doorway of the dens, and went back in. 

Janey and the other Sisters had managed to keep things from becoming a chaos while he talked to Gale; the breeders were on one side of the room, though they looked agitated and some were crying. The pups on the other side of the space, huddling together anxiously. They all went quiet when he reappeared.

He went over to the pups, and they clustered around him.

"Boss, Boss, they're tryin' to make us soft," he heard from many mouths, saw in many young eyes.

Ace took a moment to look at these small ones and think about the uncertain future they were barreling into, perhaps even their collective sandstorm ahead. He wanted these pups to come out the other side of that.

He glanced up at the women across the room at the way they look at him with doubt and hard eyes and Ace huffed, feeling cornered. Feeling like how the pups looked. He shook his head at the situation and glanced back down at the pups. There was at least one thing he was certain of:

"What are you?" he asked the group.

"Warpups," they chanted, familiar with this, so far.

"And what are Warpups?"

"Brave and strong!"

"Yes, you are," he reassured. "And what am I?"

"Warboy!"

"And what are Warboys?"

"Big an' brave an' strong an' kamikrazy," they answered in choir. Ace tried to ignore the sudden muttering from the other side of the room. They really had no idea what they were asking.

"True, but we're only kamikrazy when we go to war, right?"

The pups nodded, no longer looking so anxious. This was familiar; their minders had trained them like this.

"And if I wash my face, I am still a Warboy," he said, projecting confidence and utter assurance.

The pups were quiet, shuffling uneasily. The paint had always been a unifier, that once you were painted you were the Immortan’s family, and once you were family you had older brothers. Ones that lifted you up when you were caught on a ledge and gave you a bit of protection when being shorted and who laughed at you when you couldn’t reach what they were holding and who kicked you when you weren’t trying hard enough, until you _were_ trying hard enough. Until you became strong. Until you could be War boy. These pups had learned that the paint _was_ what turned them from pups into warpups, what turned separate into family. Ace suddenly declaring it wasn't important was baffling to them.

"I'll show you."

He glanced at Capable, and she read him correctly, brought him a damp rag.

He cleaned his face. The pups watched avidly.

"See? Still the Ace," he said, hoping his own unease wasn't showing. He couldn't remember the last time he'd completely washed off his paint. His face felt strange and bare. "Still a warboy."

They nodded uncertainly.

"And if you wash your faces, you'll all still be warpups. Nobody can take that away from you."

One small hand reached out and clutched at his pants.

They looked at him, afraid. And it made him tired. Ace sat down on a ledge against the wall, sick of towering over these kids while he rattled their certainties. He smiled weakly when the pups sat down at his feet, recognising this as a sign of story time.

"I have a friend who works on the Doof drums," he began. Had. _Had_ a friend. From what he'd heard, the Doof Wagon had crashed, and Treb wouldn't return. Ace tried to dismiss that thought. That wasn't what was important to the pups right now.

"When I have time, I go to visit him. Warboys can do that. Most of us have friends."

He looked down on the group of small pups, most of them less than two years out of the breeding quarters. He glanced at the breeders, the tension visible in their faces. The pups had been drilled out of wanting their mothers; it was part of the induction phase. Some of them might want to cross the room right now, but were afraid to be judged for it, by their peers, by Ace.

"Warpups can have friends too. Or… other people you like spendin' time with. You can visit them. Doesn't make you stop bein' a warpup."

The pups nodded hesitantly. Some of them were glancing to the other side of the room.

"If there's somebody you wanna go say hi to, you can," Ace assured. "If you wash your face maybe they'll recognise you easier, but—" he threw a look at Gale, _work with me on this_ , "you don't have to wash if you don't want to. You're a warpup no matter what."

He'd hoped maybe some of the braver ones might get up, but none of the pups moved, giving each other furtive looks or looking down, mulish. Ace caught Gale's eyes.

"You think about that, okay?" he told the pups. "I'm going to say hello to my friend over there."

He levered himself to his feet, quietly cursing his ribs. It felt like he'd been dealing with this misery for weeks. It stopped him cold to remember it had only been a week since he woke up in the wasteland. Only been five days since the Boss returned. So much had changed in such a short time, and still it wasn't nearly enough. He needed to— needed to go and talk to the warboys, make them understand what was needed. Who they'd need to be from now on. If the Wastelander was Furiosa's new Ace, the man wouldn't know to do this, let alone how. And Ace might be hurt by the way she'd summarily replaced him, but he had too much pride to set the other man up to fail.

Too much ingrained habit in wanting to make the crew strong.

He went over to Gale, slow and deliberate for the pups, and was relieved to see her approving nod. It looked like most of the breeders had calmed down too, while being talked to softly by the Sisters and the Vuvalini about not wanting everything to happen at once.

Gale reached out to him, and he blinked when she pulled his forehead down to hers, much as Furiosa might have done. The forehead touch was lighter, but his gut did something funny with the thought that this was where the Boss had gotten that gesture from.

"Gandharva **!** " he heard a woman behind him cry, and he turned around to see her closing a pup into her arms. Some of the others were coming now too, and a few minutes later it wasn't the breeders on one side and the pups on the other anymore, but a big mingled group of cautious embraces and clasped hands

He looked down to see a pup cling to his leg, small face messy with half-wiped off paint and tears. Automatically cupped his hand around the head.

"What's with you?"

"Mama's not here," the pup whispered, soft enough that Ace interpreted the meaning more from the general air of misery.

He glanced up at Gale, unsure what to do with that, because they should have expected this. She kneeled down and gently guided the kid's face out of Ace's cargo pocket, wiped it clean.

"Want to go with me to have another look?" she said, and after a long moment the kid nodded and went with her.

A group of pups was clumped together on the far side of the room, some of whom didn't look like they had tried to find anybody, but a few who had tried but hadn't found anybody they recognised or who recognised them. There were several women standing on their own also; by their crying at least two of them had discovered their kid had died. The others were comforting them as best they could.

Ace sat down on a ledge by the group of pups, feeling exhausted. They edged over to him, settling in so that he was between them and the women.

He felt like he ought to say something, but he couldn't imagine what.

After a while, Janey sat down next to him. She stretched out her legs with a sigh.

"You're good with 'em. Know if any of 'em are yours?"

He frowned at her, “They all are.” His nod included the room as well as the group at his feet, who’d seemed to hang on his words.

She looked startled. “You’re their sire?”

"...what?"

"You visited the—" she waved a hand. "the mothers, same as the rest of your crew, didn't you? Must be a couple kids running around with your blood in 'em."

"Suppose," Ace grunted. “But, the pups, they’re _all_ ours. And all of us are under Jo—” he broke off, uncertain if it was true anymore, if he was allowed ties to all the pups the way that he’d had as mentor and sibling.

"There's not really a concept of fatherhood," another woman said, sitting down on Janey's other side. She was large and soft, a milking mother probably. "The mothers don't tell the warboys if a pup is of their get - why would they? And they all disappear under the paint anyway."

"A system deliberately designed to break any concept of family," Janey said softly, with distaste. Ace looked at her confused, because what was crew if not—

"Any of yours here?" Janey asked the milker. She shook her head.

"Only had one, born all twisted. Had a lot of milk though, so." she sighed. "Could have turned out worse for me."

She glanced at the small group of pups still huddled up besides Ace, listening intently and obviously. "Thought I'd come along in case there was somebody else here wanting to make a new friend."

* * *

Toast fell in at her side, striding along in new boots and new pants and her white cloth shed for a makeshift shirt made from scarves and odds and ends.

"Teach me how to shoot," the girl commanded.

Once, Janey might have had some sharp words about such an impolitely worded request; that time was a dry time, a dust time, a time when they all felt alone and soured and chased across the dunes by decay. But she saw the way the girl's shoulders were drawn up around her ears. Remembered the moment that she was plucked out of the war rig by that polecat, how she'd been shoved up against the window to taunt them all. Felt the way the dark stones were around them and the moisture in the air promising water and fertile earth.

"You want to learn long guns?"

"Any guns. I want to be as good as Furiosa."

"That might take more than a couple days," Janey said with gentle humour. "I'll teach you how to handle a gun and shoot, but why would you need to?" She saw anger in this one and fear with the anger, and those two things together can cause many a rash action. Such an action might mistake a seedling for a weed.

“Because we need people who can shoot, the war party is coming and—”

“We have people here that we can trust I think, to fight, more than enough people to take advantage of this place’s tight corners and bottlenecks,” Janey pretended to hum thoughtfully, “is there someone in particular that you’re concerned about?”

“I—" Toast gestured vaguely.

"Anybody been bothering you?"

“No but,” the girl looked frustrated and burst out, “why should you have to step in if there were? Why shouldn’t I be able to handle them myself?”

“Why _wouldn’t_ I want to help you?”

“It’s not about you _helping_ ,” Toast’s face twisted. “I want to do it myself, _need_ , to, to—”

“To shoot someone. Snap someone. Do you understand that’s what you’re asking? Do you understand why I ask if there’s someone in particular?” They were painfully working to get help and alliances, day by day, in this new Green Place they were shoring up for themselves, and they couldn't afford a loose canon.

“Not someone in particular,” she said. Scoffed, “not someone still living.”

“Then why ask specifically to be as good as Furiosa?”

"Because I'm _scared_ ," Toast hissed quietly, her eyes zoned out mid-distance as she walked next to Janey, "we're barely keeping upright here and all these war parties are coming, and if I shoot as well as Furiosa I won't be scared anymore."

 _Not sure if that's how it works, chick_ , Janey thought ruefully. Wondering if she might regret this next action, because what she said was: "I'll be on the west tower at sunrise."

"I'll be teaching self defence, too," the Vuvalini added after a moment, thinking of trees and roots and new growth. "How to break a hold, get somebody in the soft bits. Disarm their weapons. Good for slighter people against larger opponents. So invite the others, whoever’s interested. We can't expect the Mothers to lock themselves into the breeding court anymore."

Toast nodded, relieved the subject was off herself. "They want to help."

"Yes, but I don't just mean the Mothers. I mean you girls, too," Janey smiled. Toast nodded. "I can't turn you into warriors in a week, but we're going meet every morning and every evening, starting tomorrow morning, and I'll teach you what I can. Dress in something you can move in."

"I'll tell everyone."

* * *

That evening Austeyr was settled in next to the Boss, helping her with the new arm, when Miss Gale came in.

"I've already talked to the pups about this," she said, sitting down on the ledge. "I would like for you to stop reapplying the white paint."

The other crew members looked at her, stunned. Ace hadn't bothered with new paint after he'd come back to the Citadel, too injured and sandblasted to care, his arms and chest still had smatterings of white and his face had been wiped clean during the fiasco with the pups. All new paint would do now was rub off onto the blankets, making Furiosa grumble as she always does— Ace stumbled over the thought— _had done_ , maybe. Not like he'd be sharing her bed again, given things as they stood.

Rachet had seemingly forgotten about keeping himself painted, but Kompass had found some. Austeyr, as soon as he'd been back at the Citadel, had fastidiously reapplied his.

"Still lookin' at the stuff, but we think the paint is what makes ya'll sick. Or at least sick sooner."

"But,” Austeyr said, looking at the carefully covering layer of white paint on his arm. "But we're _War Boys_. We've got… I can't go without—"

A hand covered his arm.

Austeyr looked up and Furiosa wasn’t even looking at him, staring at the medic.

“Would removing it really delay their sickness?” Furiosa rasped, speaking for the first time since greeting Miss Gale.

"The melanoma, the skin lumps, the nightfevers? We think so."

A furious set of green eyes shot back to Austeyr, fever bright, “I need you to take it _off._ ” She flicked her gaze around, “all of you.”

“Boss…”

"If it keeps you… " she shuddered with a suppressed cough, throat working at air to form words, “healthy longer…” Austeyr moved closer to rub her back, looking around for some water but she tugged at his arm until he looked back. "Wanna keep you with me—" she needed a moment to draw breath, "Long as possible."

"But _Boss_ ," he whispered, ducking in close so that only she heard. "Y'know I'm... my colour's all wrong. I need the paint."

She coughed more, and he saw blood flecks on the fresh white smeared on the hand she held before her mouth. He twitched helplessly with the urge to _do_ something for her, make her better somehow.

"No," she finally managed. She hooked her stump around his neck and drew him in, until his forehead rested against hers. It wasn't the energetic headconk he'd received from her a few times after raids, the kind that still smarted gloriously hours later, the kind where you didn't want to wash her Imperator's black off your forehead. This was a much lighter touch.

"Y'colour is shine, Aus," she whispered.

" _Boss_ ," he whispered helplessly, because how could she say that? He needed twice the amount of paint most of the others did, to look right. He needed the paint to look like the rest of them, as close to the image of the Immortan as they all could get. Guzzer had shown him the trick of it, when he'd first joined the crew, and Tops and Cam too - how to make the paint extra thick with grease, apply it so it didn't flake. Guzzer had needed even more layers. Enough that he'd told Austeyr he rubbed most of it off when the Imperator invited them to her quarters, or he'd leave it all over her bed.

Furiosa moved her head side to side a little, rubbing her forehead against his as if trying to rub off the paint that made him more like the Immortan, more like the crew. Or perhaps she was trying to rub in the words.

" _Shine_."

* * *

* * *

Max pressed himself against the rock face on his belly, edging closer to where he could get a look into the canyon. He’d found a few dead Rock Riders, bullets clean through the foreheads, so there had to be lookouts down there. He supposed that was more organisation than he’d expected to find.

Of course, he wasn’t sure _what_ he had expected to find. Salvage, mostly. Some wounded Warboys, likely.

What he was just now getting a look at was… semi-organised. There was a row of heavily injured people in the shade of an overturned car. One figure - or body? was laid on top of the car, two red lines running from his neck to two people on the ground. Max twitched to recognise the Organic Mechanic. Bleeding somebody empty? That looked like his handiwork.

Not far from there was a single car wreck that had been pulled away from the others. It's chassis was twisted, it had obviously been wrecked beyond salvage, and then it had been set on fire. He swallowed thickly when he realised there were the skeleton remains of at least ten people in there, more that could have driven the car. Apparently the car had been used as funeral pyre.

As he watched, there assembled a circle of men at a well-trodden point in the road. They were surrounding something he couldn’t quite see, making V8 gestures and chanting “V8! V8!”

It wasn’t clear if they knew Joe was dead. There were other men watching the chanters with expressions varying between contemplative and contempt.

Would Austeyr have been one of the circle, if he’d ended up here? Would Nux?

It was hard to imagine. Max wondered if in the case of Austeyr, being part of Furiosa’s crew hadn’t already involved some.. weaning off. Nux had definitely become a different person when not swept up by his God and his fellow Warboys.

Not far behind the wreck of the rig was a circle of less severely injured, around a currently cold fireplace. Warboys with broken legs, or heavily bruised ribcages. It was there that he saw a figure dressed differently than the others. He trained his looking glass there and saw the rifle and—

He hurriedly dropped the looking glass.

From what he could see without it, she looked up and in his direction, perhaps having seen the reflection of his looking glasses. The Vuvalini with the hood. Vicks. She was sitting in a way that suggested her leg was injured, but she was also clearly keeping lookout. The dead Rock Riders were almost certainly her doing.

Max felt a wholly unexpected rush of relief, at finding somebody alive he had not expected to see again. More than that, to find one of Furiosa’s people when so few of them were left - that alone would have made this trip worth it.

Max shuffled backward on his belly and, once he was clear of the edge, cautiously moved further along the canyon. Closer to the blockage he paused at the cluster of men surrounding a white-haired figure carrying what he suspected was Furiosa's SKS rifle.

“…emptied out completely. All the provisions, anything we can use. If you lads could get it out—”

“Who’s gonna guard it?” one of them asked.

“Miss Giddy. You trust her not to take any for herself, don’t you?”

There was a conceding grumble, and four of the lightly injured Warboys - or at least Max assumed they were, their paint was wearing off - went toward the War Rig to climb into its tanker.

“Now Timpani and Treb, could I have you go down the line and collect all the thundersticks you can find? Plus any kits with spare material, I know some of the cars carried them.”

The two men nodded and left, and the white-haired organiser turned around to see who— see who _she_ had left.

“Gilly,” Max murmured in surprise. He should have recognised the woman’s white curls sooner, but to find two of the women alive had been unlooked for. He felt a pleasant warmth in his stomach at the idea that he would be able to bring them to Furiosa.

“Ah, Kaybar. You can help me find the best place to rig to get this whole mess” she waved at the wreckage and the rocks blocking the canyon, “to blow.”

* * *

Kaybar thinks that all in all these old women should be _grateful_ he’d decided to scout up the canyon anyway, see the news for himself what got passed down the line. They seemed to be overwhelmed with things to do and not a single Imperator around to direct things around like it should be. No one around shouting or yelling or _anything_ , it’s a wonder that anything’s getting done.

Luckily, and it does Kaybar proud to see this, his fellow Citadel War Boys were stepping up with only one or two arguments between them— and maybe a couple breaks to pay respects to the Immortan. None of the few Farmer Boys or Drummer Boys joined the ceremony, but one can’t expect the likes of those to be pious.

Come to think of it, he’s not quite sure why the yellow-painted Farmers or the few remaining Polecats stayed. Sure they were injured, but more than half of them left as soon as they saw how blocked the pass was, and a large amount of those leaving had been injured.

Kaybar himself had lagged behind originally, after the Immortan had mourned his never-born son.His car had been at the far end of the pack when the War Rig with Imperator Furiosa had tore past them in the distance, and he’d had to wait for the rest to peel out. And as he sat in the relative quiet of his car, the purr of the engines revving muffling the sounds of the outside even more, he found himself oddly… like his stomach was whining to the point when he should really fuel up.

Except he’d already eaten today.

He’s not sure why his belly had felt so uncertain once he’d left the roar of the crowd. Why the sight of the History Woman dragging that dead wife around the bulk of a car had stoppered his voice, and why he'd looked away. Then something in him had felt weird and wrong with the thought of leaving the old woman. There was something - some old story that tugged at the sight of her, and he'd thrown open his passenger door and shouted at her to leave the dead wife, to get in. She gave him a strange look and he'd asked her if she'd prefer all her Histories end with her ending.

When he'd peeled out he'd found himself pacing himself with the other Citadel War Boys, not trying to get ahead.

 _The Imperator Furiosa is going back_ , the yells said; _she’s staging a coup_ , they roared, _she’s staging a challenge._

A _challenge_ . War Boys challenge each other all the time for their stuff, in proper matches, or the Pit, or Witnessed duels, but no one had the gall to challenge the Immortan himself. Of _course_ it was the Imperator Furiosa, Kaybar thought, watch any of them try to interrupt her bid and be given a mediocre death. Or worse.

A place on Furiosa’s crew was highly prized, of course, with great status and great rewards, but the whispers say that you have to be absolutely sure you want it. That if she turns angry, Boys tend to come back missing and no crew will meet anyone’s eyes or remember anything worth Witnessing.

Kaybar had shuddered at the thought and maybe he'd slowed down a little more, given that he was ferrying a History Person to Remember for them all, even if he thought that the rest of the Citadel cars seem to be driving a little slow. The Plows had raced ahead of them, same with the Polecats and the Mobile Refinery, maybe even a Salvage Car or two. But Kaybar couldn't blame them; this might have been the Salvage Crew's only chance to die historic, iffy though it was.

By the time he’d caught up, his lancer muttering all the while and whacking at the hood of the car in disgust. The three war parties were all bunched up at the mouth of the canyon, War Boys making War on each other, a total madhouse, a complete free-for-all.

He’d circled the mess to get the lay of the land, finding a couple non-combatants to chat up, and the land looked bumpy. People Eater had apparently ate it during the fighting and the Bullet Farmer was nowhere to be found. A couple enterprising crews from those towns had started claiming seniority and leadership rights; which other crews didn’t like, and it flat out led to a pair of intra-town wars being staged right there.

Maybe half of the Citadel Boys were edging around the fighting, planning to go around the mountain range to head to the Citadel, Kaybar thought, watching them go. Most of the rest were viewing the fight with an entertained air, cheering for one faction or another, taking bets. He saw one Citadel based-crew actually split off from the group going around the range, and looked to be heading to Gastown themselves. He’d scratched his neck and wondered how long it would take the Gastown Boys to notice, and can’t decide whether he’d rather see that group succeed or fall to the crews that come from there. If they succeeded in taking Gastown, Kaybar would kick himself so hard for not thinking of it himself, first.

Any rate, he didn’t stay long to watch to see who’d won, he and a couple others and the History Woman too were curious to see if the reports coming up from the canyon proved true, if the Immortan really was dead.

And lo’ he was!

No man could survive having his face ripped off like that, and they’d found the remainder of the Imperator’s arm too. It was a _sight_ and Kaybar kept half-expecting the Immortan to rise again, maybe reforming himself from that piece of jaw. Maybe on the third day, he’d some vague recollection of some story like that. Some distant and deep memory of feeling warm and a soft voice telling him soft things. A silly thing, maybe, that he should have outgrown, but he still keeps glancing at the jaw.

It’s the third day today, here at the end of the canyon.

“Kaybar, do you think we should move the working vehicles further back?” the woman interrupts his thoughts.

He has a moment of annoyance but can’t help but see she’s right, the rocks might bounce right into them, depending on they fall and if they’re the rolling sort.

“Yeah we should,” Kaybar replies, and follows her to the pair of vehicles the War Boys cobbled together. Honestly, he doesn’t know what she’d do without him.

* * *

Max hadn't expected to find the Vuvalini alive, but even if he _had_ he would never have expected for Warboys to be listening to their orders. Then again, most of them were injured and they seemed -- less the kamakrazee types Max remembered from the Citadel, when he was a bloodbag. They were doing their V8 chants, but even that seemed subdued, as if they were hanging on to a ritual because accepting that Joe was dead was too frightening to process.

Of course, Gilly wasn't exactly giving orders the Warboys would recognise.

Max retreated to a safer position, because it would be embarrassing to mistakenly get shot through the head by Vicks when he'd come to rescue them. There were several vehicles that looked like they worked, or could be made to work - some of them further back hadn't so much crashed as gotten stuck between others cars. The Citadel desperately needed anything that would drive. And loathe as he was to think about exposing himself to the Warboys here, the Citadel needed all the people who were willing to ally with it, too.

He'd been taken by surprise by Austeyr's pragmatic attitude. The Warboy had apparently been more invested in being Furiosa's crew than in the Immortan's, but he'd also been quick to accept that Furiosa had fought Joe and won, and that that meant she now got his 'stuff'. Max wondered if these men would have the same thought process.

He watched the people in the canyon for a while longer, trying to scrape up the nerve to make contact. He hadn't, historically, done well when approaching people, and it was a hard impulse to defy to just go back to the buggy he'd been given and keep driving.

No, no, he couldn't. He needed to get back to Furiosa, she wasn't well, she might need more blood. And since he couldn't very well go back to the Citadel with empty hands, especially now he knew Gilly and Vicks were alive…

He waited until the Warboy was mostly out of earshot and aimed the reflection of his looking glass at the ground in front of her. She froze, and he saw her hand flex on the grip of the rifle, clearly hesitating if she should raise it. He gambled on her knowing morse code, and spelled out FOOL with the reflection.

Her hand relaxed, and she made short, sharp chopping motions, interspersed with sideways swipes of her hand. It took him a moment too long to realise she was signing back in Morse, and he signalled the 'please repeat' code, hoping her knowledge covered that. She went to examine the supplies the warboys were digging out of the tanker. Meanwhile her hand signalled to him

FURI? OTHERS?

He flashed back with the reflection

ALIVE. HAVE CONTROL

The line of her shoulders communicated her pure relief at that.

WARBOYS? he signalled next.

He almost laughed at her irritated handwave, as if she was saying "Use your words, boy!" like Keeper of the Seeds had done a few times.

WILL THEY FOLLOW FURI he spelled out carefully. They could use all the people they could get, but only if they would be more help than hinder. Bringing a potential rebellion into the barely under control Citadel...

Gilly waited until the Warboys were out of her sight, and then turned around, finding him unerringly on the tall, craggy rock wall. She gave him a very dry look, and then gestured for him to come down and talk to her.

He froze, reflexively shaking his head, then hoped she couldn't see him. After a moment she shrugged and walked away, calling out to one of the drummers, and Max was left behind safe and high on his rock ledge, not sure what to do with himself.

He watched for a while, saw her collect lances and guzzoline, watched her improvised explosives and try to put them in the most strategic locations. Then he finally managed to shake himself into motion, and went to the other side of the blockage. He'd brought explosives.

But if he set his to fire on this side, it might mistime with what the Vuvalini were attempting on the other side. And it’s not like he has remote detonators on him so that he could coordinate with Gilly via signal. Max realized that he needed to actually meet up with people and speak; Glory was giving him a very pointed look and throwing a pebble at his shoulder.

He clenched his jaw and worked his way back over to the top and steadied himself to approach the groups on the other side.

He ducked behind the bulk of the overturned War Rig and took a moment to compose himself. He wasn't sure how the Warboys would react to the sudden appearance of a stranger in the canyon, but he didn't think he'd want to find out. He needed to speak to Gilly first. Irritated with himself for not knowing a better way, he resigned himself to wait until he hear her voice close by. When he finally did, he tossed a pebble at Gilly’s feet.

"Who's that, pissin' about?" she grouched. Then, when she caught sight of him, "Ah, it's Furiosa's stray cat man."

In a quick motion she scooped up a stone and zinged it right at his shoulder. Where Glory hit.

The girl giggled.

The vuvalini looked around, then came into his direction, ducking into the shadow of the rig.

"Decided to stop sitting about?"

"Hm. I have some, ah, explosives. Thought they might… might help," he told her.

“What might help is you quitting slouching around the rocks and coming over to fix up these cars.”

He hummed in acknowledgement, giving her an uneasy look.

“Too many wrecks and not enough hands to process it all. Could’ve used you earlier actually, what with setting up the pyre.”

Max felt a squirm of guilt run up through him. He'd watched as they had moved bodies into the most mangled car wreck they'd been able to separate from the rest. Watched as they had poured precious guzzoline and let the flames grow high. The Warboys wouldn't have done that, he didn't think, but the Vuvalini had insisted, both on the dignity for the dead and for sanitary reasons.

Gilly’s expression softened.

“Oh, lay that aside then, come on, let me introduce you to some of these Boys.”

She led him out from behind the rocks and a small ripple cascaded in the movements of the warboys nearest him, heads that turned that became whispers that seemed to flow down the rocks towards every warboy in the vicinity. They stared at Max and he shifted his weight forward and hands drifting gunward but the stares held confusion instead of animosity.

 _Wait._ They were staring at his neck, at the scarf there.

An old woman was approaching them, cutting through the smudged white bodies unerringly. Her wrinkled skin was smudged blue with tattoos. She stood before him and held herself tall despite the bend in her spine and her general lack of height, “A new Imperator, you look like!”

Max stared back, willing himself not to make a movement that looked uncertain, that looked weak under so many judging eyes, “Scarf’s from Furiosa.”

A murmur rose from the warboys nearby.

"Hmm. Why'd she give it to you?"

“In thanks, originally.” It was after he’d refused a bike. She’d pressed the scarf on him the morning after, and stared at him until he understood that she didn’t want to ask him to take it. He'd only understood much later, speaking with Nux as they were refilling the Rig with guzzoline, that it had meant rank. Meant to ease his passage if he should encounter more warboys.

“And now?”

“...her crew wanted me to wear it.” Max knew he couldn’t say anything about Furiosa’s state, needing to present a strong showing. He tried to shove away the memory of her laboured breath, how weak she'd been. He needed to get back, he needed to be there if she needed his blood again. _She's fine,_ he tried telling himself. _She's on the mend._ “And she hasn’t taken it back.”

The whispers grew louder. And the old woman nodded in seeming relief, “So you’ve seen her recently?”

“Yeah.” Max slid his eyes to the warboys watching them, “Furiosa and hers have control of the Citadel.”

The noise cut out.

But only for a moment. A couple bodies walked towards him while others crashed apart into arguing groups.

"The other girls are all right?" the old woman asked up at him quietly, with barely concealed hope.

“Mm, yeah," Max nodded, finally realising this had to be Miss Giddy. He'd heard the girls talk about her; they had assumed she was dead. Her shoulders caved in on themselves a little as if tired of holding themselves high, and she nodded at him, mouth tight, eyes bright. He looked up to the warboys who were watching. “Could use the help back there, could use extra hands.”

And he could see them thinking about it, flickering their gaze to where they'd been worshipping a bloody jawbone and a breathing mask. Some of them nodded slightly, others just stepped forward, as if volunteering for work. Max hesitated and glanced at Gilly

"All right, now that's settled, let's get cracking," Gilly said, mostly directed at the warboys. "Is the rig emptied out yet?"

They all got moving, some more reluctant than others, but they did.

"Anybody, uh, anybody else here I know?" Max asked Gilly. He knew, he _knew_ , that Nux didn't survive, but he asked anyway, he had to.

"The Warboy was--" Gilly shakes her head.

Max grunted in acknowledgement.

"Sorry about…" he gestured out to the far side of the canyon, at the wasteland beyond where they'd lost two of the Vuvalini.

She turned with him in the direction he'd pointed.

"Valkyrie and Mhaadi," she supplied, making the soul-catching gesture. Max hummed and copied her, a little awkward with if he should, and if it would be respectful of him to copy it as such. He thought about the two women he'd never had a chance to know beyond watching their bravery, and then he thought about Angharad. The Vuvalini would have liked her, he thought.

He shook himself and let Gilly put him to work. When a while later two drummers were picking his brain about what he'd seen of Doof's death - _they were writing an epic ballad about Doof's historic death, you see_ \- Max's twitchy nerves slowly eased.

* * *

* * *

Ace woke up as dawn cracked over the edge of the desert, the light hitting him from his seat a little away from the mattress where a pile of war boys and the boss slept. He’d napped on couple spare cushions that they’d always used to extend Furiosa’s mattress space, but his bones still ache. He blamed it on the cold— didn’t look at the warm looking pile that everyone else fell into— and thought about getting a jump on the day.

The night before ended on a strange note. After Rachet, who’d quietly watched Furiosa’s discussion with Austeyr about the paint, asked if it mattered that the same white paint dusted Furiosa’s mattress; Kompass and Ace had exchanged glances and immediately set about finding out if it could be washed or replaced. While Ace was dealing with finding a loan mattress (the ones from the Vaults and from the Immortan’s rooms immediately veto’d, same with most other Imperators, perhaps a new one could be made? is there enough supplies? maybe work out something from storage…) he’d overheard an intense conversation between Austeyr and Kompass about it being important to the Boss that “the crew _stays alive_.”

“Hey look, I know, I get it.” Austeyr replied, looking out the window instead of meeting Kompass’ eyes.

“ _Do_ you?” Kompass asked, shoving a wet cloth into Austeyr’s hands, “ _Did_ you?”

Ace had no idea what Kompass was talking about, was he referring to the Buzzard battle from before the storm?

Whatever the case, Austeyr only stared down at the cloth and started wiping at his arms. Kompass reacted as if that was no sort of victory or concession and stomped over to where Gale was holding out some wet cloths to fetch one. And then went to scrub at Austeyr’s back as if the whole thing offended him.

Ace and Rachet had exchanged a glance but for once they were both equally lost. Austeyr was one of those that normally rolled past Kompass’ grumpiness, and Kompass’ anger rarely looked quite so… hovering.

“I’m gonna— see to Stuffs, yeah?” Rachet mumbled, sidling out the door, “Stitch something up maybe. Yeah.”

Rachet eventually worked something out, and a newly-stitched mattress was hauled over by several freshly washed war pups in exchange for the old mattress and two pillows Furiosa had that were currently unused. But even though his barter took an hour, the air still remained strange around the other two war boys, even despite Ace’s questioning.

Ace stopped questioning once he saw that they were both dug in on their silence, looking at him mulishly as if it wasn’t his place. And that’s when he’d retreated to his own cushion a bit apart from them, Furiosa looking on blankly.

He’d always thought that that expression meant she had something to say but was working out the words, and he had always trusted her to tell him when she was ready.

( _"Boss?" Just let me **help** you _

“ _Alright, I’ll pass it down the line.”_ )

And maybe, maybe he was reading her wrong again but Ace could only work with what he had.. And he couldn't help but try.

He stretched a bit, working out the knots around his tumors and then headed out the door. There were War boys he needed to talk to. He ignored the quiet gaze of a pair of green eyes that followed him because, damn it all, but he didn’t want to see whatever expression was or wasn’t in them.

* * *

“This other knee’s looking swollen,” Capable called out to Gale who was working on an injured warboy the next ledge over. She had been checking over the splint on the right leg when she couldn’t help noticing that the pant leg was sitting oddly on the other. When she’d asked to check it over, the war boy insisted that he could walk on it just fine, but flinched when she applied pressure.

Gale walked towards her, swearing audibly about war boys hiding injuries. Capable watched as the man’s jaw set itself and his shoulders tense up as she approached, and when she asked if she could roll up his pant leg he stiffly pointed out that the knee’s probably too large to do that proper and then went ahead and cut open the seam on the side.

“Why would you cut up a pair of pants,” the vuvalini muttered at the waste.

“ ‘S not like there aren’t people to stitch them up, right?” he didn’t look at them, folding the cloth carefully up and out of the way, fixing it around his thigh with a spare belt.

"You could just pull 'em down."

He looked uneasy and muttered something about 'Don't want to be without pants here.'

Capable gave a double take, that couldn’t be… and then was distracted by the Vuvalini mixing up a paste from what smelled like a bit of mashed up ginger and water.

“What’s that?”

“A bit of a treatment for swollen joints,” Gale replied distractedly, placing the paste in the middle of a bit of cloth and then rubbing it together. She wrapped the poultice around the knee after wiping the knee down, and Capable can’t help prodding.

“But what is it?”

The vuvalini darted her gaze up, “I will tell you later.” And then the older woman looked at the war boy, but he wasn’t even looking at them, staring off to the side at where a war pup attended another injured at a far ledge.

“Why not now?” Capable pressed, sensing the reason and then feeling it stronger when Gale gave her a quelling look, “Why not here so that _both_ of us can learn?”

The war boy looked over at that, and the vuvalini said, “You don’t just give away high ground.”

“I don’t want to be an Organic Mechanic,” the war boy said simultaneously.

“I’m a _healer_.” Gale insisted.

“That’s just a different _word_ for the same thing, right?”

“Look,” Capable interrupted, “I’ve been talking to the boys I’ve been working on and it seems like not one knows how to… to make things better with themselves. You can fix engines right? That’s why you pattern yourselves up like that.” She nodded at the double row of interlocking gears curving its way down the war boy’s arm. Looked at in a certain way, they almost looked like a twist of flowers.

“Engines though, they make sense, can be fixed.” the war boy muttered, “We’re half-lives, most you can do is magyver things a little longer before kicking it and hopefully mcfeasting it proper.”

“You’re talking like you shouldn’t even _try_ ,” the vuvalini steamed at the younger man. “Like just by existing you’re ‘unfixable’.”

“We’re War Boys,” he said like that was reason enough.

Gale stared at him and then said, “It’s ginger, it’s a root found in the greenhouses, flowers pretty, tastes hot. Take about half of your thumbnail’s length and size and smash it down with a little aqua cola. Warm it up and wrap for… until about now. It should reduce the inflammation and if the ginger’s not too dirty stick in water and let it steep. Drink it too.”

“Thank you Miss Gale,” Capable said, “I’ll be sure to get more of this to him so that he could keep the swelling down himself.”

"Good." Gale humphed and went back to her original patient.

Capable watched the war boy look somewhat at a loss, “I’ll share some of what I know, if you’re interested. It’s not much but...”

"You want us to magyver ourselves?" There was a bit of panic in those eyes.

"Not completely, not all at once,” She said gently, “But for some things, isn't that better than having to depend on somebody else?"

His eyes went distant for a moment, and he shivered. "Yeah, okay."

“And I think it’s helpful to have more than one set of hands work a Rig, don’t you? What’s your name?”

“...Pitch.”

“The space between the notches on a gear?” she mused, as she glanced at his scarification.

“Yeah,” he looked a bit surprised at her knowing such, but Capable only nodded at him.

“I think it’s worth taking care of yourself, Pitch, instead of running on empty,” she said this carefully slipping the poultice off and handing it to him, “You’re… I mean you went to Tenday too I thought? You’re not a Thing. So you can grow, instead of only running down. You can heal, instead of staying where someone put you.”

Pitch looked up at her as if this wasn't completely sinking in yet, but his fingers folded around the poultice wrap, and he nodded back.

She smiled at him and patted his shoulder, “Come over if you want to talk some more.” And she left him to go to the next ledge.

Capable couldn’t help glancing back though and she found Pitch staring off into the distance, hand scratching at the back of his neck.

His fingertips kept catching on his brand.

* * *

Cheedo followed Spring as the war pup as he darted quickly through the hallways, looking back to check on her keeping up every so often. He slowed down as he neared a corner, and then darted into a small alcove.

A trick of the way air funnels made the words in the next room perfectly audible, she realized, and settled in to listen while the Spring posted himself by the alcove opening, adjusting his steel claws.

“You’re thinkin’ it too right?” A deep voice attempted to whisper.

“Yeah, no way Kompass wasn’t coerced and dictatored by those breeders. He said it himself, ‘trust our own eyes and ears’.”

“I know! And who would trust such creatures. Bet they’re lying, bet they’re making a big deal out of nothing,” the third voice whined his assertion through what sounded like a stuffed nose.

“Kompass probably has his hands tied though, what with that Imperator of his and being on her crew.” The words were leered out and met with laughter. Cheedo counted maybe six different pitches.

“Yeah, I don’t know about that Ace, y’hear what he’s been doin’?”

“Ridiculous it is, takin’ away our Rights like that.”

“I know! We earned it and y’think the breeders would be more grateful to be bred.”

“They’d be grateful I think, if we reset things to the way they were.”

“Take the Citadel for ourselves, you mean?”

“Not many of us here all told, thirty two war boys, and don’t tell me you’re so mediocre that you can’t take on some pup and skinny mill rats. The seven of us should be more than enough.”

“You got a plan, then, Lance?” And Cheedo thought she heard wrong, because that sounded like that one war boy Dag spoke to, on the crutch, the one who had seemed like he’d shared their experiences in part, who had been just as glad that it ended—

“Oti, why the face? Don’tcha trust crew?”

“ ‘Course I trust it, but I’d trust it more if I go over the plan. Last time you had an idea you almost tipped over our Rig, gettin’ everyone to bolt more gunners perches than it could bear.” More laughter.

“That was _one time_!”

“How about when you’d thought to add a five cluster to the base of three cluster lances?”

“Took out an entire Buzzard car with one lance!”

“Nearly took out y’face and flamed out two others.”

“T’ch! I remember Oti pulling you out of that one too.”

“Good in a _tight spot_ , Oti is, innit that right?”

The group’s laughter was then strained and a bit edged and Oti’s flat voice cut through it, the sound of a crutch tapping, moving forward, looming forward, “Do you want my help or not?”

“You’re with us then, Oti?”

“...yeah.”

* * *

The broad shouldered war boy was the last to leave, luckily. It was easy to call at him from the alcove.

“You lied.”

He’d whipped around and Spring put his hands at ready but Cheedo pressed his arm back and moved to stand between them.

“What are you doing here?” Oti asked her, eyes wide.

Cheedo simply shook her head because it didn’t matter. “You lied,” she repeated, almost to herself, “to them. I could hear it in your voice.” She looked up at him, to see his face. There’d been a strain to his voice, a mask to it, something that sounded like tone the sisters had when Joe wanted to them to play ‘house’.

Oti looked back at her for a long moment, and then looked to the side. “It’s… easier.”

“To go along with them?” Cheedo whispered. She twisted her fingers together a little and then looked at them as she folded them this way and that, “Or just safer to agree out loud.”

Oti hummed and shrugged and moved to leave.

Cheedo glanced briefly at Spring to stay him and then spoke to Oti’s back, “Do you disagree in silence, then?”

He paused. And shrugged at her again, not looking.

“I think Spring might be real interested in learning about Lance’s plans too. I might end up hearing things when I make my rounds with the war pups.” Cheedo glanced over at Spring. “Unless you think this needs more pups on it?” There was clearly a rebellion brewing and she was willing to throw more of their resources towards making sure that the Citadel stayed theirs.

Spring drew up to all of his seven hands height. “Miss, you might run a tighter and quieter relay if there are fewer. Less chance of discovery and spots where the message gets muddled. Lance looks to be the head, and draggin’ everyone with him.”

“He does have a habit of doing that,” Oti turned to peer down at the war pup, and then over at Cheedo. His face twisted up and he was silent for a long moment, thinking it over. Then he shook his head, “I can only guarantee that I’ll meet you alone.”

“That’s enough,” Spring insisted. “I’ll keep myself safe.”

“And you?” This Oti directed at Cheedo herself. “If any of us are discovered it might lead back to you.”

It made Cheedo raise her chin, “I think... I think it’s worth a little danger, if it gets you, gets us all, a place where you don’t have to just say yes. To be safe.”

Oti’s jaw worked, and then he nodded once, sharply. He left quickly, moving down the hallway, but Cheedo had caught a quick glance at his profile and thought that perhaps that’s what it looked like when someone had lost control of their expression and was trying to fight it back into place.

* * *

"Hello Ace."

"Janey."

She'd caught him just outside the door of Furiosa's quarters, looking as if he was.. hesitating, for some reason. Like he felt he should go in but wasn't quite ready to. Maybe that was why he agreed so readily to walk with her.

He was looking at her expectantly, and she decided to just start straight into it.

"I talked to Kompass a few days ago, and he said that when your crew is with Furiosa, you can say no." She saw his expression change, and she waved a hand, "I mean when you're _in bed_ with her, that she only wants you to do things with her that you want."

"That's right," he finally said, face closed. Even without the paint he was hard to read. She supposed he had years of experience following orders without giving any indication how he felt about them.

"That's how it is with anybody, from now on. Anybody can say no, Breeder, warboy, wretched - nobody has to do any sexing they don't want to, you understand? That's how it's going to be from now on."

He nodded, and she waited for a question, probably about breeding warpups, but none came.

"Since you're the leader of the warboys—" his face flickered for a moment, some kind of emotion harshly squashed, "and they listen to you, will you speak to them for us?"

"Again?"

Janey blinked.

"What do you mean?"

"Already been tellin' 'em," Ace shrugged.

"...telling them what?" she swallowed down her impatience.

"Boys not used to seein' the breeders walking around. Told 'em there would be no breedin' unless one asked."

Janey tried not to show her surprise. How had he concluded that needed to happen? She'd expected to fight him on this.

"And how did they take that?"

"Think it's a punishment," Ace shrugged uneasily. "Don't understand it much."

"The women didn't want to breed with ya'll, but they were forced to. Now they're no longer forced to."

Ace looked uneasy.

"Even if _you_ didn't force them, if you were nice to them, they knew they had to get pregnant or they would be thrown to the Wretched. So they had no choice. Do you understand?"

He nodded slowly, not meeting her eyes.

"Do you think the warboys will do as you told them?"

"Said I'd throw 'em out a window if not," he said grimly.

"Well." She wasn't sure what she'd expected. They would need to think about some type of justice system soon. "Good."

* * *

"I'm worried about the Wretched." said Toast, staring out the window. "They'll be the most vulnerable when we're attacked."

Cheedo caught the end of that as she came in from the hallway, stopping next to her to stare down as well. "Would any of the Imperators sink so low that they'd attack the Wretched though?"

"That's probably a question for Furiosa. But also… if whoever returns, promises the Wretched more than we're giving them right now, they might turn against us. We should shore up relations with them somehow."

"How? Until the bean harvest’s ready there's no way we can feed them all full," said Dag, on Toast's other side. "And even then we shouldn't if we want to feed ourselves through to when the squash are ripe- or build up any sort of reserve. We still don’t know where all that water and food’s leaking to, if there’d been that much unaccounted waste or if there's some kind of…" she waved a hand. "Pipeline in place that didn't get written down."

Toast hummed. "We can offer them water, and protection. Shade is worth plenty if you’re coming in from outside. The barracks are near enough empty, and we could move those last warboys up, offer the lower levels to the Wretched. Joe never even had this place at a quarter of capacity. There's room."

"How are we going to make sure they don't storm up here to the stores and the gardens?” Cheedo murmured, “I don't want to fight, not them, but desperation is powerful."

"Deka gives the impression they do organize and police themselves, so we can ask her."

"I really hate the idea of having them in the base levels of the Citadel like lower class citizens." Capable spoke up, leaning against the far wall, hugging herself lightly. “Not separated like that.”

"It's not like it would be locked from the outside. They could bar themselves in there against the siege."

"I'm for it.” Cheedo said, paused a bit at Capable’s expression, “Let's run it past Janey and Gale, and at least talk to Deka, she's seen what we're working with, I think she'll understand."

* * *

"I think it's a good plan," Janey nodded. "And it's a start for integrating the people more. If they get used to how we want to treat them, that we will sincerely try to feed them, there will be less risk of being overrun."

"There's another thing.” Cheedo looked hesitant, and Dag hoped that she would finally say something, anything, about what had been bothering her the last couple days. There’d been of course many things to be bothered about, but there was a certain tenseness about her when she spoke with those War pups she’d got watching everything. “Furiosa's warboy, Kompass—"

"That's the angry one?"

"Yes," Cheedo nodded. She chewed on her bottom lip. "He's been going around talking to people."

The other women sat up in alarm.

“What sort of people?” Dag asked.

“What sort of talking?” Toast demanded.

"From what the pups say— I mean I _think_ he's rallying support for Furiosa."

 _Support_ , Dag wondered, or questioning loyalties? They look much the same she knew, from how Joe had received the Bullet Farmer and the People Eater on their Year visits. They were so oddly numbered that Dag half-considered that it was made up, designed to be a surprise inspection of the Citadel, sometimes falling on 365 days and sometimes 366.

"You're not sure though, what he’s up to."

Cheedo shook her head. "Some of the people he talked to are— nobody I'd have thought was important. Or it's in a place I can't get eyes and ears on."

"I knew it. Stone-faced smeg," Dag spat. "Why would he help our side, with the things he said to us?"

"I don't think he'd work against Furiosa," Janey said slowly. "When I talked to him a few nights ago, he seemed gutted with the thought that he'd failed her."

"Then why wouldn't he tell us what he's doing?" Capable asked slowly. _Pah,_ Dag mentally agreed, faces are easy enough to fake.

"I think we have to remember that we don't really matter, to them. It's Furiosa that's at the center of their universe. It might not have occurred to him that we would want to be told."

"Or would worry about his loyalty if he didn't tell us," Capable said.

“Or still believe enough of Joe’s trash that he thinks putting War boys back in power is ‘the best thing for her’,” Dag spat, remembering Joe’s lies about locking them away.

"So how do we find out?" Toast insisted.

Capable held her hands out, "Talk to him."

"Talk to him _and_ Furiosa." Cheedo pointed out.

"Ohh, I like it.” Janey clapped her hands and stood up, “If it's something he's doing for her, she'll know of it."

“And if she doesn’t?” Dag asked. “If he’s gone behind her back? Talked to betrayers? Boiling up a rebellion where none can see?”

Cheedo’s face twisted up in a funny way again, and her fingers wove together. “I really don’t think it’s him leading it though,” but her face was uncertain.

“What if he’s gone around giving people ideas?” Dag reached out to unweave Cheedo’s grip, “Best to have it out in front of Furiosa, like you said. Don’t think he’d shred her given the chance, but she certainly drove that Rig into the sandstorm easy.”

“We didn't see her, during - we don't know that it was easy. And she seemed so pleased to have them back, I don’t think she’d be able to now,” Capable spoke up, eyes uneasy.

Dag didn’t know if her sister meant physically or emotionally but that didn’t matter because, “Think he’d stand still and do it half for her, being all twisted wrong by Joe. Probably call it a chrome way to go.”

Keeper had told her that she’d shot everyone she’d ever met out there, and maybe it wasn’t half wrong if it’d kept them alive when all others of the Many Mothers had fallen. Dag felt the weight of Keeper’s seed and anti-seeds both, and maybe she didn’t know how to shoot.

But maybe she wouldn’t have to, to snap someone.

Maybe she can grow words like anti-seeds and use them deadly to defend her sisters.

* * *

"Got something to talk about with you," Dag said to Kompass.

Dag's tone, aggressive and accusatory, made Furiosa sit up and pay attention. The girl had glanced at her as if in triumph and a bit of regret but then leveled her gaze at Kompass like she could cut him with it. There was a reason, Furiosa, realized, that they were having this conversation in her quarters, and it was that the girls wanted to confront Kompass in front of her. Cheedo looked pale but determined, letting Dag take the word. Janey was, judging by her body language, mostly there as a neutral party, leaning against the far wall, rifle at her side.

Kompass had gone tense and twitchy the moment they came in, but now he shifted away from Furiosa a little, as if he anticipated a blow and didn't want to risk it rebounding onto her. He looked narrow eyed and shoulders set, as if readying himself to be punched in the face; Furiosa knew that to anyone else he may appear only defiant and belligerent but she saw the tenseness in his jaw and his white-knuckled fists. He wasn’t loose, ready to fight, ready to serve; he was bracing for a blow.

"We were curious who you went to talk to a couple of nights ago. In the South tower." Dag said with relish.

The warboy looked oddly relieved for a moment, as if he'd expected a different subject, but then as if something occurred to him and then he returned to looking like he was being used for lance target practice. Furiosa’s eyes narrowed and promised herself to follow up on that later.

“Kompass?” She prompted.

"Went to talk to... to people whose help we need," he mumbled finally. His voice had started out confident, in his usual way of debriefing, but then drifted sideways and uncertain.

"Who, _exactly,_ did you talk to?" Furiosa asked, already feeling the shape of this in the air and cold dread growing in her gut. Through small meetings with the wives, she’d been kept in the loop, even if it felt like trying to see with the dust in her eyes, filtered; she knew that they’ve been trying to weld together the Citadel’s parts that were not strongly affected by the worship of Joe into a new whole. She knew of the compromises made and all the new changes and while she'd always encouraged initiative in her crew, she’d always taken point on their raids. Imperator Xe, whom she replaced, ran his rig from the gilded backseat of the War Rig.

Furiosa instead liked her own hands on the wheel, except she’d gotten stabbed. Had to pass the wheel over to that warboy Nux and it’d felt like she hadn’t really gotten it back ever since. She felt vaguely glad for it even if it ached a bit, seeing these past few days how the girls stepped up and the Vuvalini adopted the Citadel as their own and as her crew took on responsibilities like leading Tenday. And Kompass shouldered responsibility like few others did, except if he did what she thought he'd done…

"I talked to lotta people, but… but they—" he flicked his glance to Dag and Cheedo and Janey, "I think mean the ones we don't mention. Those that Fixer mainly deals with, when his other sources don’t pull through."

She sucked in a breath. _The Soundless_. Furiosa could see Dag's face doing something satisfied, and Kompass looking ashamed, and she squashed her instinctive reaction to feel betrayed by her crew. She didn't like dealing with the Soundless and never would, but this was Kompass, and she _trusted_ Kompass. She trusted him _not to trust them._

“ _Them_. Of course it’s them.” She closed her eyes for a moment and gathered her breath.

“You know them, personal, Boss?” Kompass looked at her, awed.

“Furiosa - you know who he met?” The girls asked her one after the other.

“They’ve always wanted— _Why_?” She interrupted herself, “Why did you approach them?"

Furiosa felt everyone’s eyes on her like a physical weight, like they were waiting for the hammer to fall on Kompass, bloodthirsty like a crowd at the Pit, and it made her neck itch, her stump itch, why were the girls even _here_ when she needed to debrief her crew for this, did they think she was going to dress him down for it?

“Why didn’t you _wait for me_?” She didn’t even have enough attention to waste on the gasps from the girls, and their disbelieving looks.

Kompass still had his eyes on the ground.

“What did you promise that we’ll have to fulfill?”

"I don't know what Morsov or Sprocket woulda done, they were much better at talking, but I know they were always lookin' out for you, Boss, and I tried— I'm tryin' to have your back so as you don't get any nasty surprises." He hesitated, glancing up at her, and she gave him an encouraging nod. He _was_ trying to help, and she was oddly, distantly proud of how far he'd stepped out of his comfort zone to do it, even if she hated her boys bringing themselves to the attention of the Soundless. Nothing good ever came from being in their sights. She wanted to _punch something_.

"Boss, we know you don't like dealing with them, but Fixer—" Kompass paused, rallied. "You know 'e can't be trusted. He don't want all these changes. W—I went to speak to Them so as to get their support for you."

She could scarcely imagine what the Soundless might have thought of such a request.

"...and what did you have to promise?"

"They'll back you, in exchange for a hearing, after."

"Hm." She looked at him steadily. “What did they say, _exactly_.”

“A ‘fair hearing’, if that Max comes back.”

“I can guess what their definition of ‘fair’ means,” Furiosa’s jaw ticked, not looking forward to the meeting already, but something occurred to her about that wording, "And if Max _doesn't_ come back?" She didn't want to think about that, but ignoring worst case scenarios had never served her well.

Kompass looked angry the way he did when someone under his personal watch was Witnessed and Furiosa’s dread grew colder still.

“Austeyr said… he’d take on the loss.”

Furiosa swung her gaze around the room, eyes wide, and whipped back to Kompass, “ _Where_ is he, get him _in here_. Get Rachet and Ace, too, none of you walk around alone. ”

Kompass rose to his feet and jogged out of her quarters, something between relief and determination on his face.

"You believe him?" Dag said.

"I do."

Dag glanced to Janey, who gave a minute nod.

"Who _are_ these people?"

"They're… you don’t know them unless they let you know them; they end everyone they don’t approve. But they took care of… of things, and people, that would otherwise be ignored."

“They were around while Joe was alive?”

“Been around as long as he’d been,” Furiosa looked off, “as far as I know.”

“They were here _all that time_?” Cheedo’s voice trembled.

“And they never helped a one of us,” Dag pointed out.

"That's assuming they had that power," Janey said softly, her eyes on Furiosa.

“Where they able to then?” Toast asked. “Did they have the numbers, the resources?”

She just stared off to the side, mutely.

Capable kneeled down and laid a hand on her forearm, “...Furiosa, what can’t you say?”

Janey finally walked over from her post by the wall and squatted down to try to look at her too. Furiosa couldn’t meet her gaze, a dull roar in her mind.

“Furiosa?”

* * *

* * *

"We're all loaded up."

Max looked at the two vehicles they'd managed to get past the obstruction, and the piled-high buggy he'd come in. He'd found most of the things they'd told him to look for, plus two people nobody was expecting to find alive. They’d seemed to all be organized and listening to the elder’s orders and advice. And these war boys they’d met up with seemed to look forward to heading back to the Citadel and helping out. Why was he still feeling cornered, even with all this wide open space around him?

He watched as two Warboys carried a breathing mask and a bloody lower jaw, and twitched. _Oh yes. That._

Max would be more concerned about potentially bringing a small war party straight to Furiosa’s door if he wasn’t concerned more about the Vuvalini’s injuries, if he hadn’t seen that Furiosa’s people controlled the lifts, if he hadn’t still felt a small forehead bruise left by those two war boys who’d saw him off on this run.

If those war boys, if all of Furiosa’s crew, were so loyal to her as to give up their ties to Joe when she was set against him, could there have been other war boys who never made it onto her crew with similar loyalties? Or at least who might have the _potential_ to have them? Max can’t help but think of Nux, who’d crashed the Rig for him, can’t help but feel the bruise in the pit of his elbow where he’d given of himself after knowing Furiosa for maybe two days. Maybe he just needed to get these war boys to the Citadel and have Furiosa and those girls work on them some.

They started up the vehicles, and set off.

* * *

Max really hoped the Buzzards were as beaten down as Austeyr had said. The two cars that had been salvaged from the canyon could barely manage more than walking speed. He was keeping pace to them with the sand buggy, not that it was that much faster.

On it he had the two Vuvalini, three drummers, and a Warboy who seemed to have musical ambitions, and the trailer had been stacked full with as much salvage as they'd been able to strap on. Vicks had Furiosa's prosthetic arm stashed down by her feet. It was damaged, but repairing it might still be easier than building something new.

The drummers were still working on their ballad, working out lines and bouncing melodies from the back of the car, a constant accompaniment Max found he was beginning to enjoy. Vicks, grinning in the passenger seat, referred to them as the Backseat Boys.

The truck sputtering behind them had the wounded laid out in the back, Miss Giddy sitting with them. They'd lost a few more Warboys overnight, ones Max had been worried about transporting. He wondered if somebody had helped them along.

It was an End Times thought. And maybe that should horrify him, but he couldn't feel much beyond hoping it had been fast and kind.

The Organic Mechanic had attended them last. Max knew from observation and personal experience that his version of _kind_ was—

When Gilly had convinced him to come into the canyon to help them, the man had greeted Max with a shouted "Bloodbag!" Nux had used that word in a way that had grated on Max, but he'd had no time to correct the Warboy, and he'd recognised that there was a kind of innocence, to it. That Nux really did see it as a function Max had fulfilled, perhaps. The Organic Mechanic though.. Max had experienced and witnessed enough indignities from the man to see red, and he had shoved him up against the canyon’s rock wall so hard his head had bounced back forward with a satisfying sound.

Gilly had pulled him back from the red rage of it, her voice low and intense, talking about how they needed a medic right now, even if he was a despicable person. Max had given the throat under his hand a good, satisfying squeeze and then turned away. So far it had at least dissuaded others from calling him similarly, or treating him like it.

—Max flinched and tried to turn his focus back to the road. He checked the rearview and saw the last car was still following, and he could feel his shoulders tense.

The third vehicle was one of the polecat base cars, stacked full of the remaining Warboys, plus a few from Gastown and the Bullet Farm who seemed open to joining the New Citadel regime. They'd brought along the breathing mask and jawbone though, and Max was worried about that, worried about bringing a symbol back to the Citadel to worship, something that could easily divide an already fragile situation when they most needed it to be united. Would these men really fight against the forces that were coming for the Citadel, once they made it around the mountains?

There was no room for mistakes here; it would be less than a week before the war parties arrived.

* * *

That night they arranged the cars in a rough circle, and set watches. Gilly arranged shifts with the SKS rifle between herself, Max and Vicks, but Max only dozed for an hour or so during her watch. She was perched on the rollbars of the buggy and he'd taken the seat beside her legs, so that the slightest motion would rouse him.

She knew all three of them were keeping a close eye on the third car, none of them confident that there weren't bringing betrayal to the Citadel, with the boys carrying that remnant of Joe. So when she saw three shapes move away from that car and disappear over the nearest dune, she lightly nudged Max awake. He began to move, but she put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. Treb, Timpani and Clef were asleep in the back seat, or at least seemed to be. Better not risk anything. She tapped out on his jacket in morse:

3 GONE. NW. BETRAY?

He nodded, only barely visible in the moonless gloom, and eased himself out of the car, ghosting Southwest.

Gilly resisted the urge to keep looking in the direction she knew there'd be a confrontation. She worried for Max - she'd been told he was formidable, but one against three wasn't a sure thing no matter how skillful you were. She reached for the stillness she'd been taught by her Initiate Mother, the discipline of a sniper. Kept her eyes soft and slowly turned to take in the rest of the camp.

There was a quiet noise from the truck with the injured, a gasp like somebody woke from a dream and some sounds of motion, but then it went quiet again.

Her attention had already moved on when she saw motion in the truck, and a slight figure slowly climbed out. The History Woman, Johanna Giddy. The old woman was stiff with the cold and with age, one of their few blankets wrapped tightly around her shoulders.

Gilly tilted her head to indicate she'd seen the other woman, and to welcome her closer, and after a few minutes she settled into the seat where Max had slept. The storied woman looked like every word drawn on her face was half-hidden, folded into her frowns, and she placed herself so she could turn her head away from the car with the injured.

"All is well?" Gilly invited. It was obvious by the older woman's posture that something was not well at all, but Gilly hadn't really gotten the other woman's measure yet. Johanna'd lived in the Citadel for many years, and some of her ideas were very much strange to the Vuvalini way of thinking. However, she'd played an important role in Furiosa's escape with the young women. That made her an ally, at least potentially.

There was a long moment of silence as the History Woman looked at her hands, fingers folding and unfolding as if a leather version of an origami fortune teller, trying to divine meaning from them. She looked back, finally, and whispered, "He's— I can't stop him." The words fell out with an angry-resigned grimace. “I can’t even...”

Gilly saw Vicks come awake in the other seat, the subtle shift in her breathing the only indication.

“Stop who?” Gilly asked, with some sort of dull blankness, it couldn't be what she’d immediately thought based on Johanna’s words and her tone, it had to be something else... “Stop what?”

"All the boys they just. Tell me it's fine. ‘How it’s always been.’ ‘Just the way of things.’ ‘It’s an examination, that's what Mechanics _do_ ',“ The History Woman looked at them warily, somehow small, like she was used to being attacked for these words. She said it slow, like she was watching for their reaction between every slight pause.

Did... did the slimey man not heal him, as was his duty? Did he cause them to go worse? Gilly wondered, _Was that the cause of the bubble of silence the man seemed to bring with his presence?_

“They’d tell me, 'It’s not what you think.’ At least the girls knew it was wrong. I could…" she balled a fist and let it drop to her thigh, and Gilly felt cold as things shifted into perspective. "I could be angry with them and for them. I couldn't stop it, even with the girls," she blew out a long, defeated breath, "but I could do _that_."

"Organic," Gilly breathed, horror washing over her, because this filled in something she hadn't understood - the way the Warboys acted around the man, at once worshipful and uneasy, like nobody wanted his attention on them but they needed his favour in case they got hurt. The way that the air grew tense around some of the Warboys when the man drew near.

She wants to kick something for not realizing it sooner, not seeing the signs better, clearer.

She found herself turning toward the truck, wishing for just a little more light. It'd be easy to shoot him through the head. Dead easy.

She felt Vicky's hand close around her boot, and looked down to see her friend shake her head. Gilly gave a headtilt in answer that meant _'I know_ '. She couldn't kill him with a bullet right here, the whole camp would erupt in a panic. She thought she could probably take him with her knife, but her shoulder wasn't feeling so well that she was certain of it, and if the Warboys reacted unexpectedly, if they defended him, the women would be out-numbered.

"Nobody wants to admit it’s going on, saying that the few cases are flukes. Nobody wants to admit they’ve been hurt. Nobody would defend you.” Johanna reached out with a word-lined hand and put it over where Gilly was clutching her gun. Her skin felt like the memory of paper. “If I'm not... not there to witness it, they can pretend it's not happening, and that it doesn’t matter," Johanna said, voice low and resigned.

Gilly gritted her teeth and made another slow survey of the camp. The sky on the horizon was beginning to colour with the first light of dawn.

And from the side of the sky that was still deep-night, Max was coming over a dune.

She hadn't known how worried she was that he wouldn't until she saw him, his head bent, his silhouette oddly distorted by things he was carrying. And not distorted by physical pain; she would’ve thought he was completely uninjured until she noticed the high set of his shoulders, up around his ears, back cowed by more weight than could be explained by the few things he held.

Vicky slipped up onto the watch perch beside her, and Gilly handed over the SKS, shouldered her own rifle to slip down to the sand.

Max wouldn't meet her eyes as he walked up. He was carrying three pairs of boots and a bulk of other items in a cross-body sling improvised from a pair of canvas pants. 

She gently took them from him and stashed them away on the trailer, out of sight. When she turned back, he was still standing there, looking lost and aimless in the gloom.

She didn't know why, but on impulse she reached out to him, brushed a light hand over his shoulder, offered the forehead touch. It took him a moment, but he lowered his head and rested his forehead against hers for the space of a second or so. Seemed to breathe a little easier for it, seemed a little smaller. This man, who took out three battle-ready warboys like it was a normal night-time stroll, who’d scattered men off the War Rig like batting off flies, who’d had a presence like the Wasteland itself, and proven as reliable as Furiosa had called him.

She was sorry for what she needed from him, because he seemed... far away, like he needed to spend some time quietly looking at the sky. He was not the man of easy violence she had thought he was, though he bore all the signs that he once had been. But she needed a reliable weapon, and he was right there, if she was willing to aim and pull the trigger.

 _You don't have to like it, as long as you do it when it's needful_ , she remembered her Initiate Mother's lessons.

"Organic," she breathed, and felt him come to focus next to her. "Giddy says he's—”

Max had already turned towards the car and was moving towards it, like he didn't need to know more than that.

“— _touching_ the Warboys."

He jolted mid-step, a pause like a storm gathering sudden and brutal, a low sound that was almost a growl. And she fell in at his side as he then barreled towards the car.

There wasn't enough light for Gilly to see exactly what the Organic Mechanic was doing, but Max clearly saw enough. He reached in through the open back of the truck and took the man by the throat, and pulled him away from the Warboy and over the tailgate.

“Hey! What’s the big deal?” The Organic Mechanic tried to shrug away from Max’s grip, but the wastelander simply marched him away into the desert, the Mechanic’s arm twisted up behind his back, without a word. “You’ll not get away with this, you _need me_ back at the Citadel. Who you gonna have lookin’ after those girls of yours if I don—”

His voice broke off like a cheekbone was smashed in.

There was the sound of a scuffle breaking out, that receded further and further from them.

Two Warboys were staring at Gilly with huge eyes. One of them hurriedly rearranged a blanket over the other. A third was firmly pretending to be asleep. She wished she was their Nightengale, who had an instinctive manner with the hurt and injured. Who would know what these boys needed.

Then she reached slowly to her belt and took off her half-full canteen. Set it down in the truck bed for the boys.

She walked around and settled into the driver's seat of the truck, rifle across her lap, trying to breathe stillness into herself.

After a long moment the two Warboys slunk out of the truck, leaning on each other, and huddled together beside the cab, out of sight of the other cars. Gilly kept her eyes on the horizon and tried not to notice the careful way they helped each other wipe down with a rag and then reapply their white warpaint, slow and solemn like a ritual, until all the bruises and handprints were gone. Until they were both pale and white-clean under the starlight.

When they helped each other back to the truck, she tried not to wonder how much of it was injuries gained from the canyon and injuries gained that night. _Better not to think on it._ The fury served no one.

* * *

It was nearing sunrise by the time Max came back this time, light enough to see the blood on him. He had the Organic Mechanic's tool belts slung over his shoulder. She reached over and opened the passenger door for him, and he wordlessly sat down. A loud clang bounced around the car as the the toolbelts hit the bottom of the footwell.

After a few long minutes of silence one of the Warboys in the back cautiously set down the canteen between the front seats, and with it a rag.

Max looked far away inside his own head, staring through the cracked windshield. Gilly dampened the rag and, when he didn't seem to notice her, draped it over his hands, which he blinked at and slowly then started to wipe them down.

She traded the rag for her canteen after a moment, and he drank from it in a long gulp. When he put it down finally, he seemed to shiver all over as if an animal trying to shake off sand.

The man seemed to start and then reach into his pockets, here, there. And he came out with a little round tin.

He placed it carefully between the front seats, and pushed it backwards with a finger.

“Mmm, it’s salve.”

Gilly looked at it and asked, “May I?” At the Wastelander’s nod, she picked it up carefully and unscrewed the lid to see a brown cream with a familiar smell that she’d not caught wind of since the Green Place soured. “Wound cream,” she pronounced and placed it back. “It should also help sooth any bruises, or, ah… I don’t know what you need from us. I don’t know what he...” she trailed off awkwardly, remembering Johanna’s words about the war boy’s collective repression and denial. Gilly didn’t know the details of what that foul man did, but it _counted_ , whatever it was; the scars he’d left behind him were writ clear in their faces and eyes, in how the slimmer Warboy watched her warily, reaching forward slow as if ready to flinch.

He picked up the small tin of wound cream and dabbed a finger at it experimentally, eyes narrowing.

“Where… did you get this?” He was spreading the cream on the deep tear on his arm even as he spoke, “Kukri, here,” and passing the tin over to Kukri who’d started smearing it over the gash on his side. “I recognize it.”

“Should, ‘s from the Citadel,” the Wastelander mumbled, “was a gift. Don’t know their name.”

Kukri froze and looked over. “Razor, isn’t that—”

Razor just made a sharp hushing movement, and his jaw looked hard, “Do you even realize what you’re... what you’re just handing over here?”

“Mm.”

“We’re _half-lives_ , nearing the end of it, and needing a Mechanic’s attention to even be useful, why waste— why _bother_ —”

“Don’t need any part of him,” Gilly bursts out, “Not a bit.” She spat in the sand beside the car.

Max only stared out the window silently, audibly grinding his teeth.

Kukri watched them. Then carefully closed the lid of the tin and slid it back into its place between them all.

The four of them; Gilly, Max, and the Warboys, awaited the dawn in silence.

None of them slept.

* * *

“Y’know,” The Organic muttered from where he leaned against the side of the truck. “I think you overreacted.” His right arm hung awkwardly and his face was half-caved in and the edges of him were transparent. He had a twist in his neck.

Max told himself that the man was dead, he’d made sure of it.

“I think they’d be needing me back at the Citadel and you just shot yourself in yer own liver.” He picked at his teeth with an oddly-stained bit of metal, and the spat off to the side, “Think you just let some people die. Think they might as well died with your own hands.” The Organic Mechanic grinned through his bruises on what’s left of his face and Max knew that the bruise would match the shape of his fist.

“Remind me again, how well off was that Furiosa girl when you’d left her?”

The ghost laughed as the sound of her wheezing breath filled Max’s hearing again.

“She made for a very pretty War boy, did you know that?”

Max stared fixedly at the horizon.

* * *

The cars hissed, tired and winded.

They’ve been making their slow way to the Citadel after the bloody morning, Gilly driving the truck with the Wastelander mute and stone-faced next to her. The blankness of his stare unnerved her even if she knew the reason for it.

But all cars were piled high with people and salvage and even the warboys stopped when vehicles complained. And since they were all stopped anyway, they went ahead and pushed everyone into a circle, a space to share their meals and a bit to drink. The warboys fell into it easily enough, from the couple day’s habit that they’d pushed them into a proper pit stop with the lure of produce and veg. Max, to the surprise of all, dug out two thermos with still-fresh mother’s milk and passed it around to the other’s awed delight.

“Was a gift,” the man muttered when they pressed them for how he’d got his hands on some, and this caused the warboys to stare at him for long seconds, whispering among themselves in a rush.

"A gift?"

“ _This_ much?”  
"How can that—"  
"Shh, don't question it"  
"A _gift!_ "  
"He must be Favoured, weird Wasteland smeg."  
"Why would he _share?_ "  
"Shhh!"

"Hey, where's Schrade, and Esee?" one of the polecats asked, twisting his head here and there, nervous and twitchy.

Gilly tried not to come to attention too obviously. She saw Vicks do the same, weapons at the ready for a confrontation.

"Thought they must have gone in t'other car. Haven't seen Mace yet either." The Citadel boy who spoke didn’t seem like he much cared, mouth pinched like he’d thought about spitting.

"Took a walk." Max spoke up.

His eyes were hard and the way his face was set seemed to suck all the air out of the bowl of the sky.

A pair of Farmer Boys edged away slightly from where they sat to his left, glancing at each other.

“Ey,” Kaybar’s eyes narrowed, “Did he take a walk or ‘take a walk’.”

The man flicked his eyes to the war boy and Vicky slid her hand to her rifle as the meal circle stilled.

"Well fuck, that fucker had new boots," Kaybar spat, “Been having my eye on those, he was my size."

(Gilly is horrified. For the Vuvalini each person is a valued resource.)

“ Hey if you have them... whadaya want for them in trade?”

“Trade?” Max asked blankly.

Kaybar nodded at the man’s boots, “Those look plenty good enough and better fitting on you than his would. What would you need a second pair for?”

The man just looked perplexed overall and Vicky found herself confused as well, what could the Wastelander possibly want in trade that he did not already have…

“How’s about a can of chrome,” Kaybar smiled a salesman smile, “All Warboys have one, can't die chrome without it. Without a can you might as well be a repair boy, or garden crew, no chance of the Gates of Valhalla opening for y...you…?”

His voice drifted off as Max pulled such a can as was described from his pocket and everyone collectively blinked at him.

“Okay, where—”

“One of Furiosa’s,” the man’s forehead furrowed in thought, “Named Austeyr.”

“Then…” Kaybar visibly floundered. “Your shoes for—”

“A story?” Miss Giddy asked.

The warboys looked taken aback by the entire concept, “Trade boots for… a _story_?”

There was some snickering. Kaybar was one of them, and was opening his mouth with laughter in his eyes—

“A good one.” Miss Giddy insisted, “Something worth Witnessing is as valuable as any object.”

Silence.

Kaybar’s mouth opened and closed, opened again, “Well the Immortan’s face—”

“Seen it,” Max interrupted, “Not worth a boot.”

An outraged rumble.

“Anything that could help Furiosa back at the Citadel?” Miss Giddy pressed.

The warboy seemed stumped for awhile.

"Which Imperators went around the mountains? How many Warboys did they take? How many cars?" Miss Giddy continued.

Kaybar slung his gaze over at her and looked thoughtful, “From what I remember, they were already bloodying it up as soon as word passed down the line that the leader of the three town’s gone to Vahalla." he thought for a moment, then nodded, "Leadership of the three defaults to the last of them alive, but no one knows what plans there were if all three were wiped. Last I’d seen, both Gastown and Bullet Farm Imperators were going at it, some of the dumber Citadel Imperators too, but maybe three Imperators had already drove off with what crew they’d manage to rally. Say 100? 150?”

Max squinted, “their resources hold up for that?”

The warboy looked up for a minute and then winced.

"Every car has guzz and Aqua Cola, but a lotta that was already used on the run out. Even if you're not addicted… it’d be a stretch at this point, especially if they're pushing speed."

The wasteland man nodded and walked over to the trailer. Rummaged around.

A pair of boots landed near Kaybar with a spray of sand. “Ey!” But he lowered his hands as quick as the spray landed and grabbed at the boots.

A couple of the war boys laughed at him then, or chatted with each other, eyes darting at Max and the boots, at Miss Giddy and Kaybar, at the thermos of milk that was still travelling the circle. Some simply stayed silent and frowning, minds clearly turning things over.

A few of them quietly went to the polecat car.

Vicky got to her feet to ‘inspect the engines’.

While the others talked, Vicky slowly circled the three cars, trying to stretch her knee. Not everybody was listening in to the conversation. From the corner of her eyes, she saw a huddle of Warboys on the outside of the polecat car. They looked up, but then continued digging a hole.

She watched as one of them took something from the floorboard of the car and dropped it into the shallow hole. It was bloody.

Joe's jawbone and mask.

They each made a solemn V8 gesture over it, something of finality in the nods they gave each other, and then shoved sand into the hole.

"'E would've wanted to be buried on the road," one of them said to Vicky, who hadn't asked. He didn't meet her eyes.

"Yeah. Best thing," another agreed.

She nodded, as if she didn't notice they weren't bending down to fill the hole, just shoving sand with their feet, as if she didn't notice that they stamped on the sand to compact it. 

From the corner of her eye she saw another still figure, watching them, perhaps. Furiosa’s wastelander had perched himself on the roof of the truck, to look over their small encampment, and his head was turned towards them.

His gaze was unfocused, however, and she wasn’t sure what he was actually seeing. Sometimes he'd look at a particular spot of nothing, and then resolutely look away again. Gilly was watching him too, and Vicky met her friend's eyes, sharing a small nod. They needed him as a resource and it would be much harder to manage the group without him available. Here’s to hoping they could keep the wheels spinning, or at least _look_ like they were spinning, until they made it to the Citadel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
> 
> \- [The Velveteen Rabbit](http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/williams/rabbit/rabbit.html)
> 
> The lyrics of the ballad are:
> 
>  **As Long As You Doof Me**  
>  Although the music has always been a friend of ours  
> We've left our riffs in your hands  
> People say you're crazy and that you are blind  
> Thrashing it on the Wagon  
> And how you got all blind is still a mystery  
> Vahalla's gates opened instead  
> Erased what is written in your history  
> But now all your songs run free.
> 
> I don't care who you wear  
> Where you sing  
> What you play  
> As long as you Doof me  
> Who you wear  
> Where you sing  
> Don't care what you did  
> As long as you Doof me
> 
> Every little war that you have done played on  
> Feels like it's deep within me  
> Doesn't really matter if you died in the sun  
> You thrashed to the end, for me
> 
> I don't care who you wear (face you wear)  
> Where you sing (where you sing)  
> What you play  
> As long as you Doof me (I just know)  
> Who you wear (small red cape~)  
> Where you sing (doof wagon~)  
> Don't care what you did  
> As long as you Doof me (yeah)  
> Every little war that you have done played on  
> Feels like it's deep within me  
> Doesn't really matter if you died in the sun  
> You thrashed to the end, for me


	24. Adze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adze: A thin blade mounted perpendicular to the handle on an ice axe that can be used for chopping footholds
> 
> _They were trying to keep her safe, shield her from anybody who might want to stick a knife between her ribs and finish the job. She just… didn't want to be safe. Not when the sisters weren't, not when the Vuvalini weren't. Not when her crew wasn't._

"Good morning," Janey greeted Ace when he came up to the sentry post at the top of the Southern tower. She gave him a searching look while he caught his breath. When he'd first come up here the morning after that Wastelander left, he'd expected her to protest - it was before Miss Gale had said he should leave Furiosa's quarters.

She'd just shrugged, and said that he looked like a sensible man who knew his limits.

"Morning," he hummed, when he no longer had to work for air. The sentry reported nothing on the horizon, and Ace nodded.

They strolled together to the next post.

"How are things this morning? Our Furiosa any more sweet tempered?"

Ace's breath caught at the idea that he had any claim on the Boss. He couldn't read Janey's tone well enough yet to tell if it was sarcastic, or a taunt.

They shared a glance, and Ace shook his head hesitantly. Furiosa had just gone distant after collecting them all in her quarters after Kompass had come to get them all, urgency in his voice and deeper than normal frown on his face.

Moreover she had become more insistent on getting out of her enforced bedrest and doing _something._ But although she was recovered from her fever and getting stronger and more energetic by the day, her injuries were nowhere near healed enough for her to move around as long or as much as she wanted. It was a bad combination of frustration, and feeling vulnerable and out of the loop that was familiar to all war boys on the mend, but heightened by the alarm caused by the threat of the Soundless.

It was suddenly round after round of questions of the state of the Citadel, insistence on everyone travelling in pairs, requests for more weapons in her room. And she started talking about being properly armed. Rett had brought her more parts, and she had a crude but functional arm put together, but she wasn't exactly a pleasure to be around.

"Furiosa feels cut off.” He stumbles just the slightest on her name. The Vuvalini’s sharp eyes dart to him, “I know you all didn't want to bother her while she was healing especially those first couple days, but I reckon the not-knowing makes her feel vulnerable. I know we all try to keep her updated, but…" Ace shrugged.

"Yes, I suppose under Joe it was vital to always know what was going on," Janey mused. "I will see this morning if we can move some of the council meetings to her quarters."

Ace nodded, and they inspected the cranes and what had been done to make sure they'd be functional during the attack they knew was coming. She made some suggestions and they’re ones that he would have made, and it made Ace feel more and more replaceable. A few days, at most, before the war parties round the mountain range. Ace could only hope that the Wastelander would be back before then. He had to be a good fighter, but more than that, Furiosa didn't just brush him aside if she had some plan in her stubborn head. Listened to him. Between the two of them they had a hope in hell of keeping her in one piece, because he knew there was no way to keep her completely out of War.

"Ace!" Rachet came pelting up to him and Janey.

"What is it?"

"The Boss," Rachet panted. "She's got up, she's on her way to the council room. We did as you told us, but she wouldn't be stopped."

Ace glanced at Janey, who mostly looked amused. Ace, Max and Miss Gale were more or less the only ones who could make her change course. Perhaps Janey could too, but she hadn't bothered so far. Janey seemed to be more on the side of 'that's my girl' than 'you should not be doing that'.

"Don't look at me," Janey said. "I reckon the more you coddle her, the more she's gonna try an' dodge you."

Ace nodded, resigned.

"Just stay near, make sure she sits down when she needs to," he told Rachet. "We'll come down that way soon too."

As Rachet left, Janey shaded her eyes with her hand and hummed, looking to the East. Ace followed her gaze and saw the distant dust plume. By unspoken agreement they went over to the lookout post to use the looking glass.

"Three cars," Janey said. Her eyes were keener than Ace's. "Drivin' real slow. Think it might be our boy Fool."

* * *

Furiosa leaned back in the low chair and tried not to look as out of breath as she felt. Kompass was giving her worried looks from the doorway, unhappy she'd told him off for 'fussing'. It hadn't been fair, but she didn't know how to explain.

They were trying to keep her safe, shield her from anybody who might want to stick a knife between her ribs and finish the job. She just… didn't want to be safe. Not when the sisters weren't, not when the Vuvalini weren't. Not when her crew wasn't.

Plus, she could feel herself slowly going out of her mind with boredom and frustration and tension. Even though she was hurting and out of breath from the walk up here, it felt good to _do_ something. And to see and hear things for herself.

Until now, the idea that the Citadel was a different place post-Joe had been theoretical. She'd tried to picture it, in her lucid moments between fever and drugs and exhaustion, but hadn't known what to imagine. Now she had seen some of the changes for herself. The warpups in all the colours of the desert sands, the breeders walking around in twos and threes, exploring the Citadel like they have never been able to before. Someone had started a wall painting up near Joe's old quarters.

It wasn't anything Furiosa could have imagined seeing here, hallways and corridors she had only known having walked down, tense and guardedly, bracing herself for meeting the Immortan. It felt strange and dreamlike. Uncanny with both how familiar it was, and yet one step to the right of what she remembered. They were _good_ changes and while she was proud of everyone for working together to enact them in her absence, she did not see them happen for herself and Furiosa kept on expecting to wake up, heart pounding, or to come up against some disaster.

Then again, bringing up the Soundless to the Council may end up being one.

She met Kompass's eyes and cut her gaze over to the chair next to her. He hesitated for a long moment, and then came over to take the seat. She had no intention of talking over them. Or of taking over the Council roles that he and Ace clearly filled in during her absence; many things lately have shown her that despite their well-meaning efforts to keep her in the loop, Furiosa didn’t really know what was happening with either her crew or the Citadel. It was true that Furiosa knew how to pretend knowledge, to fake power, to assume authority; she’d had to as raiding leader and later as Imperator. She’d learned how watching Joe strut his falseness in order to command the men that inhabited this place.

But Joe was dead. Furiosa shouldn’t need any of that anymore; those girls who talked of worth and philosophy and poetry over tea were implementing those ideas with barely any input from her, those experienced Vuvalini who had survived left their mark as well, guiding and protecting. Furiosa knew this from what they told her during her bedrest, from how the pups at her door spoke of them when they thought she wasn’t listening, from what she saw on the walk today. They didn’t need her. They didn’t need her pretending to know something when she didn’t.

She thought Ace would come to the council, but she wasn't sure. She wasn't sure of anything regarding Ace. After she'd woken, half delirious, to find him taking care of her she'd thought maybe there was a chance she could still have... have his companionship, his friendship. His weight against her back as she slept, keeping her safe, guarding her six. But the last few days he'd stayed well out of her reach, sleeping on the other side of the room, always gone when she woke. He wouldn't touch her, made it a point to avoid contact, and it made the movements around them stilted and cautious, and that—

That especially at a time when she needed all her crew around her, with war parties incoming and dissent forming from within—

She swallowed away her hurt to face this new sandstorm of theirs. She couldn't expect to betray a man such as Ace and have him shrug and still be the same. She'd betrayed him more than the others, spoke lies to him more directly, the deep fear churning low in her gut making it impossible to trust him fully. She'd lied to him, hurt him and left him to die, and he didn't owe her anything. If he wanted his distance, she would try to respect it.

Slowly the council members began to come into the room, and Furiosa was soon busy being greeted, being welcomed as if they had been waiting for her all along. There were milking mothers, one of whom was cradling a baby who looked like it had been in need of the extra care. There was a woman from the breeders court. A representative from the Wretched. People representing various parts of the Citadel, the gardens, the repair boys, the cook staff, the inventory, and so on.

Her crew had been adamant that 'Miss Gale' wouldn't want her to come all the way to the council yet, would in fact send her back to her room on a stretcher, but Gale only smiled when she saw Furiosa and came over to touch their foreheads together. Then the Vuvalini sat down next to her, no doubt to keep an eye out for any signs of exhaustion.

That left Ace looking for a free spot elsewhere in the circle, and Furiosa bit back her grimace.

The sisters greeted her with pleasure, but Furiosa was glad to see that they at least seemed to have no intention of suddenly giving her any more control. The Citadel’s workings she had knowledge of... needed to change. Plus, they seemed to have things well in hand. She only spoke briefly when the expected siege came up, and then ceded the word to Ace, who was more up to date on the defence situation. 

A runner came in to report that the convoy from the canyon had been positively identified, and was expected in an hour or so. A frisson of excitement ran through the room. Max had been sent out for salvage, but if he was returning with three cars he'd obviously found more than things alone.

"We asked Max to look for your arm, too."

"I hope it's scrap," Dag said idly. "Mangled beyond help."

"What?" Furiosa asked.

"Why would you hope that something that helps Furiosa—?"

"It was a symbol of Joe and his machine cult," Dag said in a sing-song voice. "His evil was all over it. Even if it isn't scrap, Max should just leave it in the desert."

Furiosa looked down at the arm she'd cobbled together in the last few days, little more than a fancy hook. It didn't have a tenth of the function and articulation of her old one, which she had spent years perfecting.

She hadn’t wanted to perpetuate any of what she’d learned to survive Joe, had been thinking even before the Council started that she’d wanted to step back and just listen; but what if she was, even with her best intentions, _still bringing Joe here_...

She thought about Afterburn. Felt the phantom sensation of that final blow travelling up her arm.

Maybe Dag was right. She'd done a lot of evil with that arm. And not just with the arm, maybe _all_ of her was a symbol of Joe and his evil. Joe wasn't just in her arm, he was in her _head_. He'd _made_ her, from the parts of her remaining after being ripped from mothers and home and everything sane. She hadn’t even thought of the women as more than Things that she could steal from Joe when she’d packed them away with the produce. She'd given more thought to how angry he'd be to have his treasures stolen than to their freedom. Hadn’t learned their names except by overhearing them talking to each other and to the Many Mothers.

She was the Immortan's last Imperator. A leftover from a system that was broken and that they were trying their best to leave behind. She didn't know if she was equipped for this new Citadel.

Maybe they should have left _her_ in the desert.

"Nonsense," Janey said sharply, "It wasn't a symbol of Joe, it was a thing Furiosa made to help her function. Doesn't make the thing, or the using of it, evil, just because she made it when none of you could escape that Joe."

Dag’s face screwed up in anger, "His spirit was all over it. It's _tainted_."

"If it is, so am I," Ace said in a low voice, looking around the circle. _So are you_ , he didn't say, but it seemed like everybody heard it anyway.

"And I expect you'll be making a big pyre of all those books you have, then," Gale said softly. "Since Joe gave them to you."

Dag looked to the sisters for help, but Capable shook her head.

"Something, or—" the redhead glanced at Ace, "some _one_ , is not lost because they came from Joe. If he didn't ruin _us_ forever, he didn't ruin anything or anyone else forever, either."

Furiosa wasn't aware she was shaking until Kompass shifted slightly, his shoulder surreptitiously brushing against hers. She leaned into the touch, needing the contact to steady her. She wished Ace was on her other side, wished for the familiar bulk of him close. It took a long time to stop trembling, and she let the voices of the others float by her, concentrating on breathing slow and controlled.

* * *

"Now there's another issue needs talkin' about. A group of people we— or at least some of us—" Janey said, startling Furiosa to attention, "didn't know about."

She could feel Kompass tense up, still not completely reassured he wasn't about to get punished for his initiative. Furiosa could see some of others in the Council visibly cringe back, because the punishment for speaking of the Soundless if you weren’t suppose to know of them was severe.

But Furiosa had a realization when she woke up: Joe was dead, and The Soundless needed her alive.

That she killed Joe may well be considered a match where she ‘won’ his stuff, so out of habit at least parts of the Citadel may be looking towards her for leadership.

“People don’t talk about The Soundless,” Furiosa spoke up, ignoring the gasps and the nervous shifting of some of those around the Council, a few heads turning around in curiosity. “But that’s because they tend to kill those they don’t want knowing of them. And those who talk about them carelessly.”

She saw Cheedo take in who'd evidently already known about them, Toast narrowing her eyes in thought, Dag biting at her lip as she read the fear off the faces.

“Like you’re doing now?” Britt said sharply, holding the infant protectively close.

“I realized when I woke up that it doesn’t matter anymore if they’re known, because Joe’s dead.”

“What does that have anything to do with The Soundless, they doing a power grab? Want control of the Citadel for themselves?”

Furiosa shook her head, not willing to speak of her suspicions outloud, “It’s more simple than that.”

“How?” A chorus of voices rose up and it nearly hid the flutter of cloth as two robed figures settled to a stop just inside the window.

There was a soft murmur of surprised voices and intakes of breath.

“Well, Archive?” Furiosa asked the taller one, “Will you tell them?”

Deka stood up but Archive just waved her back down, and lifted black gloved hands up to the edges of the deep hood.

“You know my name, girl.”

And Furiosa sensed the ripple of surprise roll across the room because not only was this the first time most in the room had heard The Soundless speak but—

But.

The voice… it was that of a—

The tall old woman shook her hair free of the hood, almond eyes squinting at the various people in the room, “I should maim you all simply for not inviting me.”

“Feng,” Furiosa said sharply, “they could not have known.”

" _You_ did."

Furiosa gave her a level look, “because you cornered me by threatening my crew.”

“You always did get more clever when backed to a corner,” Feng waved a bony hand as if dispelling the thought. “It’s why I’d always wanted you with us. I like your fire; I would have made you truly _terrifying_ , if you’d but accepted the apprenticeship.”

Apprentice, lowering her hood as well, grimaced a little but hid the expression swiftly.

"I preferred to take my chances as a War boy. I’ve seen your idea of _mercy._ " Furiosa couldn't even think of the full story of it, mind a blank rage.

“I think you’ve taken on those same ideas, have you not? I’ve seen you discard your rundown war boys and those you didn’t need any longer.” Feng spread her fingers, “Not that I blame you: they are many and cheap. We’re all just trying to work with what the wasteland gave us.”

Furiosa found her throat sanded at those words, memories of giving Afterburn a chance to be witnessed, of those members she found irredeemable, and of the crew that she’d used as protection in her escape from Joe. She could not argue against the Archive because she used and pruned and discarded her crew, just to survive. And she knew that they were looking at her now, waiting for her next words and the weight of their gaze made her mute.

“War boys are not _cheap_ ,” Capable said, startling all eyes towards her.

“And now they aren’t many,” Toast added, “Everyone has worth when we’re so few.”

“Even when you’re not so few,” Gale opinioned, “Even when the Green Place was thriving, it didn’t match the numbers of the Old World, and even then... The one thing you couldn’t replace was time.”

“And they are _half_ -lives, what are their time even counted in? Days?” Feng sneered. "But I suppose they have been Useful to you," she said to Furiosa. "It must have been worth the sacrifice."

"It's no sacrifice to be with my crew. They _saved_ me," she said, glancing at Ace, at Kompass.

“The one who bartered for my support isn’t even here,” Feng pointed out. “What is his worth if he isn’t even—”

“ _She kept him from coming_ ,” Kompass interrupted, his jaw clenched. “She tries to save us, too, even from things we don't know are dangers.” He glanced down at himself, paintless even though he hated it. “You may be The Soundless, but you don’t know the Boss. There was no ‘discarding’, if we threw ourselves into anything…” his eyes shifted in memory and refocused, “we did it gladly.”

“You have them so well trained,” Feng simply said to her admiringly.

“Who are you to—”

" _Forward_ ," said Many sharply. "Let's move _forward_. You're raising my Aurotaenia, I have no wish to war with you. Are you coming here to ally with us? What are your resources? I’m guessing you’re coming forward now because Joe’s dead and not spendin’ so much on pretending you don’t exist?"

"Your daughter didn't die?" Dag asked her sharply, having asked of names to give a baby that didn’t come from anything Joe-touched.

“Said ‘she’s gone’,” Many pointed out, “didn’t say where. You've never wondered why there are so many more war pups than girls?"

"I tried not to think about it, feared their deaths to be honest."

"Wait, Joe knew about the Soundless?"

Feng laughed, sharp and ugly. “Tried to root us out often enough, but look how that worked out for him. We’ve made ourselves necessary but his pride needed us to be hidden.”

“But _why_?”

“Because Joe discarded his wives, once we get too old or had three ‘failures’,” Feng spat, “Three births that aren’t a healthy son. Where did you think all those wives and daughters went, if not to the Wretched or the Milkers or the Mill Rats?”

“So that’s where the food and water’s gone missing,” Toast murmured. “And not all of Joe’s wives would have died being thrown to the Wastes, or working on the Mill; the numbers of the Milking Mothers never matched up to the numbers of wives who’d been discarded, or their infants.”

“I’d thought you might’ve been a sharp one, we would have taken you in, if it had come to that,” Feng continued musing, as if Toast’d not spoken, “but it’s hard with you having said so little. That Angharad could go on, didn’t she? All those idealistic ideas that could never pan out. Though I suppose Johanna did good in encouraging her to set things in motion."

“Angharad's words had the truth of it,” Capable interrupted. “We would not be here if it were not for our allies.”

"You would not be here if not for _us_ ," Feng said sharply. "How do you think you made it to the garage unseen, that night? I thought it was a foolish plan, some mythical green place, but Johanna agreed to shoot Joe's miserable head off, so we took the chance."

The sisters met each other's gaze.

"Then she lost her nerve, the silly goat. Always more eager to talk than to do. Fat lot of good it did her, now she's dead."

Feng's voice didn't quite seem to hit the scorn she seemed to have meant.

"You knew Miss Giddy?" Capable said softly.

"Yes," Feng said sharply, as if she realised she'd showed more than she'd intended. "Yes, I knew her." She spoke quickly, angrily, onwards, “And your allies were pure _luck_. Not everyone you find would be so kind. Right now is the time when you need to implement new laws, to curb those who would take advantage of you, and you would do well to rule firmly and wisely instead of with well-meaning ideas that will only cost you in the end.”

"I think they are doing well enough without your advice,” Furiosa interrupted.

“They are _children_ , they’ve barely lived anything, and will need our experience. They don’t know how the Wasteland works.”

“I think you mean to rule, not to give advice,” Janey spoke up.

“I know and read and listened the histories of this Wasteland and the Old World that existed before that, I am called the Archive amongst the Soundless for a _reason_ , newcomer, and it’s because I Remember.” Feng drew herself up,

“But you’ve never lived outside—

“But we’re trying to change the past—

“We’re following Angharad’s blueprint—

“ _I know what works here_ ,” Feng spoke over them all, voice rising, “in this Citadel, from many long years, and what works is _fear_. And what is feared is death in all its forms, so you must be willing to deal it.”

“And then you call it _mercy_ ,” Furiosa murmured.

Feng laughed bitterly, “No, I call it making the hard decision. I call it leadership. I call it not being childish and petty.”

“She could have _lived,_ with a bit of care. She was strong." Furiosa found herself saying.

"Still on that I see.”

Furiosa sat quietly, trying to swallow the white, blank rage.

"Boss?" Kompass murmured, brushing his shoulder against hers.

"Yes. ‘Still on’ _how you let my mother die_. How petty of me."

“It wasn’t safe to retrieve her for healing, I’ve told you that.”

“I’ve seen the way the Soundless move, the things you could heal—”

“Child,” Feng interrupted, “you have no idea of the knowledge and the planning that goes into those efforts, or of the number of women and children I am protecting. I _refuse_ to risk their safety for that of a person that I have not known. Especially not one who would have upset everything we'd built just to get you out of the Vault.”

Furiosa hunched in on herself a little as the people around her gasped and murmured.

“Let’s turn that question around: How many people have _you_ killed just for _your_ own safety, mm?” Feng stared at her, sharp-eyed. "How many have you let die? And do you know how to deal with it yet? Because I have. If you would only let me advise you—"

"At least _I_ know I'm not the person who should be leading here," Furiosa said to the ground. Raised her eyes and tried not to let her mouth shake, “What you call me... Either I’ve led my crew as Imperator and I’ve raided and killed to make my way there and _survive_... Or I’m a ‘child’. I cannot be both.”

Supportive noises sounded from the sisters and Kompass and some of the Council while others started talking rapidly with their neighbors. Furiosa chanced a glance at Gale who’d sat next to her, but the Vuvalini’s eyes were wide and Furiosa wouldn’t be surprised if it was in accusation and she wasn’t sure if she was imagining it was there or hoping that she didn’t see it.

A warpup came in, looked around skittishly for a moment, and then his eyes found Cheedo. He edged up to her and bent down to speak closely to her ear. She nodded, offered him some of her water, and then sent him back out.

"The three vehicles are coming up to the inner range," she spoke up, breaking into the noise. "The lookouts report at least ten people, some women. They'll be here soon. I'm going to welcome them."

Kompass glanced at Ace and jolted to his feet, “Not alone.”

“I’m coming with you,” Dag agreed, glancing at the war boy. Janey simply got up silently, checking her rifle.

Ace was already at the window looking downwards. “Might want more than just you four at the lift, I see some white bodies but also some yellow. Not quite sure that’s a good thing.”

“Might be a bit of an ambush,” Janey agreed. “Or a hostage situation.”

“Apprentice.” Feng said sharply.

“I’ll have the others on standby,” the woman said, and slipped out the window with a few quick steps.

“Let’s go see what that feral has brought on our heads,” the Archive muttered as she raised her hood and nodded at those still in the room. “We’ll meet you down there. Well, probably not you, Furiosa. That gut wound still needs some looking after.” And then slipped out too.

Furiosa tried to get up from her low chair and hissed. She looked imploringly at Ace, but he just tilted his head. She tried again, got no further this time, and sank back, defeated.

A swirl of well-wishes was chorused at her, some with acknowledging nods, some with pats to her shoulder, and then everybody streamed out, leaving her alone in the council room with Ace.

Furiosa just looked at this man that she had almost killed, during the escape. Found herself glad that she failed.

She didn’t know what to say to him.

Ace looked back at her. Waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feng = wind/crazy/mad in Chinese. 
> 
> Brought to you by everything that toxic masculinity fears and keeps secret; the criminalization/fear of women taking control of their own bodies and agency, the monstrous feminine.


	25. Hang Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Hang dog—To rest on the rope as you lead climb, putting weight on the protection rather than the rock._
> 
> He stepped into the space that the Organic Mechanic had been floating to shove him away and asked of her, “Everything all right?”
> 
> Dag looked around them and then at him, uneasy, and told him, “You bring evil.”
> 
> Max could only stare at her silently.

_Ahh home sweet home,_ Organic cackled as the lift settled into its garage-level cradle. He lept off the platform, making a bee-line towards that tall, straw-haired girl, Dag, who was standing by the lift landing.

Max followed hastily after, watched as Organic raised a hand to lay it, bloody, on her waist and she flinched bodily away, looking around her.

He stepped into the space that the Organic Mechanic had been floating to shove him away and asked of her, “Everything all right?”

Dag looked around them and then at him, uneasy, and told him, “You bring evil.”

Max could only stare at her silently.

“Not that again,” Toast said, and walked to stand next to them, “Welcome back, Fool. How sure are you of these people?"

"They, mm, seem willing to…" he gestured vaguely. "Go with the new wind direction. Bury old things."

"Hmm. Guess we'll have to catch them up on what that new direction is."

"Furiosa’s been doing a bit better. Today at council we’d found out…” she trailed off.

Max had begun surveying the tower above them, looking for the where he thought Furiosa's quarters were, and when he glanced down, Toast was looking at him thoughtfully.

“I think we can catch you up later.” Toast said finally, exchanging a glance with Dag.

The entire garage was buzzing as people swarmed up to the new cars and their riders. Max watched with a jaundiced eye as the newly arrived war boys were quickly split up from each other by a mixture of unpainted war boys and what looked like the men that walked the mills. Austeyr was leading the greetings, grin wide, with handshakes and shoulderpats and with one hand on something sharp. There was some shouting from one corner and Max glanced over to see some sort of huddle with the Vuvalini and lot of hugging going on.

There was a commotion on the other side of that car as two figures fluttered down from above and landed on the lift platform. One walked swiftly to where the buggy with the Vuvalini and the history woman still stood, and some words were exchanged as the old woman gingerly got off.

“Friends?” Max asked, nodding towards the black-robed figures.

“In some senses of the word,” Toast said dryly. She was fingering a sidearm and her weight was forward and Max thought _, ah, those kinds of friends_.

The Mechanic was looking at them with his head tilted.

“What about the ones you bring,” Toast asked, “ ‘Friends’ too?”

“Could be,” Max hummed, pointedly ignoring the Mechanic’s chuckle, “Lost some on the way over.”

Razor popped his head over the edge of the truck, “Deserved to get ‘lost’, if you ask me.” 

_I'll go ahead and see Furiosa if you want to wait_ , said the Organic Mechanic, and Max flinched, only half listening to Toast talk to Razor. _I'm sure she could do with a checkup._

Max aimed himself in the direction of where he knew the stairs to be, and barrelled toward her quarters, only vaguely aware that one of Furiosa's crew was pacing him. It was strange to see him without paint, but his scarring was familiar - it was the brawny one that had headbutted him before he left. He was saying something, but the OM was loudly fantasising about Furiosa and it was taking all of Max's concentration to remind himself that there was no point in strangling him.

Her quarters were empty, and Max looked around frantically at the bare mattress, the few empty bottles standing around.

"Been trying to tell ya," the warboy said, giving him a cautious look. "She went to council this mornin'. Probably still there."

Max whipped back out the door, striding down the hallways and ignoring the way the intermittent light made the skull beneath the Organic’s face flicker into sight. The man was laughing at him.

 _Lead on,_ he said wetly, _Never been up there meself._

Footsteps paced him and he reminded himself that it was probably— Kompass, that was his name. Furiosa’s crewmember. Someone friendly and not someone to shoot.

The Organic Mechanic was walking next to Kompass, singsonging, “ _bloodbag_ , _hey_ _bloodbag_ , _blooooodbag_ ,” trying to make him look. Trying to make him turn and punch someone, anyone, the warboy who was the only one there. Footsteps echoed in the small space, the skitter of rock as boots scattered gravel, his steps felt unsteady as it slid sometimes due to the small stones. A cracking sound as something crunched and broke in two beneath his weight. Just some limestone maybe, or old pottery, not a skull. Not bones.

_Are you sure?_

Max clapped a hand to his own neck, trying to reassure himself there wasn't a hooked needle in his artery.

_Bloodbag, hey hey bloooodbag, gonna hook you up, drain you dry, wanna watch when I examine Furiosa, bloodbag?_

_Look at me or I'll taze you in the balls, bloodbag! Bzzzt!_

_BLOODBAG!_

When he finally spilled into the room, as the space opened out around him and the window opened huge on the far end and Furiosa looked up, slumped in her chair, eyes tired but still green, their gazes met like a shock to the system. He felt like there was suddenly room in his lungs. Her breathing was quiet and slow; everything, actually, was suddenly quiet.

And Max found his breathing quieting too.

He moved forward.

* * *

The council had broken up at the arrival of the patrol and the Wastelander they had gone to assist, the Tribunes - at their request earlier today no longer referred to as the Widows - and some of the other council members heading over to the lift arrival platform.

Furiosa had stayed behind in the council room, and Ace knew it was in no way by choice, but because she hadn't been able to get up from the low, cushioned chair she'd been given. She'd looked like she'd wanted to curse him when he hadn't offered to help her up, but had decided to save her breath. 

"Ah Boss, y'just be overtaxin' yourself. They'll come up here anyway."

In fact, the first one to do so was the Wastelander himself, striding in with long paces and a tension to his face that made Ace straighten up. The man halted abruptly a pace in front of Furiosa, as if he'd reached the end of an invisible rope, and made a questioning soft of hum. His eyes darted all around the room, as if not able to look at her, or seeking something, or both. Ace took a quick glance around, but there there was nothing, the room emptied of danger, Furiosa sitting in her chair, weary and maybe a bit breathless but otherwise mending.

The feral’s hands twitched as if wanting something to _do,_ to attack, and Ace prepared to step forward—

The Boss tilted her head slightly, and something seemed to pass between them. A pained sound rumbled through the room.

And then the man went to his knees as if the rope holding him back had been cut, more collapse than kneeling, more collision than embrace. Both his hands reached out to cradle her head and bring it against his. In moving he'd ended up between her splayed knees, and it was the kind of sudden, confining closeness she'd never accepted from new crew, that always had her go still and tense, meeting Ace's eyes and waiting for him to drag the new guy away and teach him better.

Ace felt himself rock forward to intervene. It was his job to make sure new crew - and was that was this man was? - didn't make her uncomfortable.

Austeyr had trailed into the council room after the Wastelander, and Ace saw the same look of alarmed surprise on his face that Ace imagined was on his own.

Furiosa didn't quite have the reaction he'd expected, though she did seem startled. Her hand came up to rest in the man's neck, and one of his hands unclenched from around her head and wrapped tightly around her shoulders, and he buried his face against her neck, breathing harshly.

Ace met her eyes over the Wastelander's shoulder, made a gesture to offer to get him away from her. She flicked a 'no' with her eyes.

"Max," she breathed, and stroked her hand lightly over the back of the man's head. "Hey…" He made a sound of pure relief.

After a while the man abruptly seemed to realise what he was doing, that he was being observed by Ace, Austeyr and now also Kompass. He shuddered and withdrew, putting both hands around her head for another moment of intense eye contact. Furiosa blinked at him slowly, clearly exhausted, and then he let go of her and rocked back onto his heels.

The click of his braced knee joint rang around the room, and Max winced.

Ace met Kompass' eyes.

"Let's…” Kompass said, “Let's get you to your quarters, Boss," moving in as soon as Max made space. Austeyr did too, and between the two of them they got her upright, arms draped over their shoulders, and moving out of the council room.

"Need ta talk to ya," Ace said to Max when the man made to follow Furiosa out of the room.

The man looked a little feral around the eyes, the way he'd been the first time Ace had seen him, twitchy and tense. His eyes stayed on Furiosa, and when she was no longer in sight, they kept flicking back to the doorway where she'd left.

"The Boss is—" Ace suddenly didn't know how to have this talk. He'd had it with new crew before, but he'd had a better idea of where they came from, what they'd understand. And he knew very different things about the Boss now.

But he had to try. There was no precedent for this kind of demotion, he'd been her Ace since she made Imperator, but in other crews a new Ace was only appointed if the previous one made it to Valhalla or got too sick to do war.

That he had been demoted was clear; being kept in the dark and discarded in favour of a new crew could mean nothing else, and he'd just done her the inconvenience of not dyin'. How she expected this Wasteland man to fulfil his duties Ace didn't know, but he had to train her new Ace the best he could. If not for her sake, then for the sake of his own pride. 

"Ya can't just touch her like that."

Max hummed, something like a question.

"She's... There've been—" He forced himself to stop. "You was a bloodbag," he said then. "Must've known t' Organic Mechanic."

There was a flash of something, something a lot like disgust, in Max's eyes.

"He'd—The Boss would be, ah," Ace dropped his voice, "scared, of him. Once we knew, we never left her alone with—."

Max's face did something cold and hard, a kind of feral danger to him that reminded Ace just how much this man wasn't a War Boy, wasn't constrained by Citadel rules.

" _When_."

"She never said. Before she made Imperator, maybe when she lost her arm." And— and maybe also when she was in the Vault. He had thought Joe would have made sure of the best care, never let Organic touch his treasures wrong, but… Ace'd thought a lot of wrong things.

"He won't again," Max ground out.

"What, leave her alo—"

"Touch. anyone." he grunted. "War boys. _Furiosa_."

The man's hands were clenched in a way that suggested he'd personally made sure of it, and Ace felt an odd swell of relief, that something he hadn't been able to change had been taken out of his hands. Maybe this man wouldn't make such a bad Ace after all.

"Good," he said, and then with feeling, " _Good._ "

They were both silent for the space of a long moment, and then Ace realised he hadn't gotten to the end of what he'd meant to say.

"She used ta be a wife," he finally threw out, the words feeling wrong sour on his tongue with all the times he'd said those words with a sense of pride. That their Imperator had been considered worthy by the Immortan, even if she hadn't turned out to be fit for purpose. 

Max grunted like _yeah_ , like that wasn't news, and Ace wondered when she'd told him, this Wasteland stranger. Gave him such a vulnerable piece of herself. 

"Said Joe was just like Organic. Mean. Touched them like— that."

Max turned to him with raised eyebrows, as if baffled by what Ace had just said, and then grunted like it was the most obvious thing he'd ever heard.

"You.. you knew that?" Ace said.

"Hm, you _didn't?_ " Max dashed his eyes away from him as if he wasn’t worth seeing, already moving after where Furiosa had left, with crew.

Ace stared after him, felt like something in him stretched and then _snapped_ , and then he turned away to the balcony, climbed out and up until he found a secure little ledge where he could stew in his own confusion and anger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With many thanks to [Yume](http://youkaiyume.tumblr.com/) for her amazing artwork!
> 
> PS: I promise we're going to start being nice to Ace soon.


	26. Mantel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Mantel** — A climbing move in which downward pressure is applied with the hands to a ledge, lifting the body high enough to get the feet on that same ledge. Usually used when no handholds are available.
> 
> _When Ace finally felt ready to talk to Furiosa, it was late afternoon. His thoughts had been churning through his head ever since he'd first seen her, injured and weak, in her quarters. Ever since she'd told him about her escape plan, but the added hurt of knowing how much she'd confided in the Wastelander had brought things to a boil. He had never confronted her before, always trusted that what she did was in his best interest._
> 
> _Until now._

There was a cushion on the window ledge.

Max was here earlier to see if Furiosa was in her quarters - she wasn’t - and the ledge he’d slept on before was empty, free for him to claim. Now it was occupied by a cushion like one that the crew spread around the edge of Furiosa’s mattress to make space for themselves. Had one of the people he’d brought back claimed the space?

“You know, I never used to have cushions,” Furiosa said from the mattress. Kompass and Austeyr had installed her there and left again. She looked exhausted enough that Max figured she'd actually stay put, too.

“Then this—” she made a vague gesture at the mattress that Max supposed meant _This thing where my crew comes to my quarters at night and piles in around me like lethal puppies_. “Then the cushions started to appear. Still don’t know where they come from.”

She chuckled at the thought, and he wondered how this _had_ started. 

“Got somebody new?” he gestured at the cushion on the ledge.

“No?” she tilted her head at him, then looked back to the ledge. “Ah. I think that’s—" she yawned hugely. "Just somebody noticing you’re back.”

Max pressed at the cushion a bit. Good solidity.

“Think he’s welcoming you as crew.”

“About that…” He glanced at Furiosa quickly, but her gaze held. "Don't think they all agreed on that." From what Max could see, all the crew touched Furiosa constantly, whether it was helping to move her around due to her injuries or acting as a heat source in bed. But that older war boy Ace had just warned him away from her, in the Council room, telling him ‘not to touch her’. Was that what he’d meant? They hadn't seemed to mind him touching her before he'd left for the canyon. Did something change from when Max was here last?

“Never been an issue before,” Furiosa mentioned to the floor with an odd, confused note.

* * *

When Ace finally felt ready to talk to Furiosa, it was late afternoon. His thoughts had been churning through his head ever since he'd first seen her, injured and weak, in her quarters. Ever since she'd told him about her escape plan, but the added hurt of knowing how much she'd confided in the Wastelander had brought things to a boil. He had never confronted her before, always trusted that what she did was in his best interest.

Until now.

Now he needed answers.

He found her in her quarters. The rest of the crew was occupied with getting the newly arrived Warboys situated, but the Wastelander was in her quarters too, sitting peacefully on his ledge.

"Furiosa," Ace said, standing in the doorway, and the combination of his tone and her name made her straighten up.

Something in her stance reminded him of back when he'd watched her fight in the pits. Ready to take a hit, but more than ready to dish one out.

"It wasn't fair, what you did," he said quietly.

Fair. He hadn't even really known what fairness _was_ , let alone expected it to be applied to him, until she'd gotten the War Rig. Until she'd told him what she needed from him and given him the chance to give it to her.

"It wasn't fair to dump me for being mediocre when you didn't give me the chance to be better."

She opened her mouth, but he fanged it, the words he'd been chewing on for days bubbling up.

"And that makes _sense_ if you just viewed us as the War Boys you worked with, but we was more than that, you was more than'at to us. We was _crew_." He could hear the hurt in his own voice, and rallied.

"An' if we wasn't good enough, if'n I picked the wrong guys, why did you— you should have _said_ so, not let me think it was good enough when it weren't! I was your _Ace_! Why would you let me be _mediocre?_ "

He remembered his nervousness and then his pride at riding for the first time with the crew he'd selected, how pleased he'd been with the performance and how her obvious approval had made him feel funny in his stomach. Had he failed then, or was it later? At which point had she decided she couldn't trust them, not completely, not with this?

She raised her hand as if to speak, but then clenched it into a fist and dropped it again. That just riled him further.

“Where did the lies start? When did you decide we weren't good enough to tell us your plans, but just good enough to serve in them?”

She wouldn't meet his eyes, taking a step back.

"An' I've been breaking my brain over that plan, but there was no version of this where you'd have let us be on your side, was there? If there'd been no storm, if any of us'd survived, would you have just picked us off? Or let those Vuvalini women do it?"

She looked _stricken_. He didn't want her to answer that, so he barged on,

"It weren't _fair_ to us, not to give us the chance, and you know it, and if our thinking was wrong you should have _fixed_ it, you should have _upgraded_ us, not dump us by the roadside like something beyond salvage and drive away with a new crew."

Ace grew quiet and traced the topography of the rock that formed the walls, not able to look at her. She held such power over him, and he _hated_ it, in this moment. Wished she didn't have that ability to reach right into his chest and take what she liked. Wish he didn't still want her to reach in and like what she saw.

"After all— after everything you owed us that much, Boss. An' now we have to work with them, with these widows, and we're supposed to just ignore that you preferred to face the wastelands with five untrained girls and a feral bloodbag?"

A feral bloodbag who knew more about her after three days in her company than Ace had known after close to 2000 days. He still fumed at the thought of it.

"How could you take them instead of us crew that fought with you, that trained with you, that would very well throw themselves in front of anyone gunning for you, _and_ _have_.”

Furiosa sucked in a breath. 

He knew they were both remembering Sprocket.

His throat hurt, his chest hurt, and his ribs were _healed_ , near enough to not matter, he wasn't sure why it was so hard to breathe, why he felt like she was punching his ribs with her chrome hand when she was just standing there, not sayin' anything. He focused his eyes on the window. It was easier to speak that way.

"You should have let us know you, you should have let _me_ know you," he said, because that hurt, that in all that time and for all their closeness, for all what he'd _thought_ was closeness, he hadn't apparently _known_ her. Had known a version of her that didn't exist.

He remembers that time she’d went back to their Gastown lodgings drunk, how she shared her drink and made them all feel sacred, was there any truth to that memory as it existed for Ace? Was that moment so shallow to her?

“I let you know as much as I could,” she said distantly.

"AND I KNOW THAT!" he burst out, frustrated, the words bouncing through the room. "I know that you felt you had no choice and that makes _sense_ but Boss, you claimed me, you claimed us, you _bound_ us to you! We should have been given the _chance_." he wheeled on her and abruptly deflated, because her face was the same familiar Imperator's face, hard and unyielding, but her cheeks were wet with tears. She was leaning against the wall as if it was holding her up.

Max was still on the window ledge, watching them both with alertness, but showing no signs of interfering, no censure for either side.

“You knew us, or I thought you knew us. I don’t know anymore… Aren’t cha going to say _anything_?”

He wanted her to shout back, he wanted to hear her defend her choices, but instead she just stood there and took his shouting, and that didn't _help_ that made him _angrier_ , it made him feel _smaller_ , because part of him knew. Remembered the V8 signs and the eager looks at learning she'd had the honour of the Immortan's regard. Remembered how she'd seemed to shrink. Remembered the distance after moments like that, when he'd told himself that she was hurt, sad, remembering. In hindsight maybe what he'd seen in her eyes in moments like those was betrayal.

But he wanted to hear her _say it_ and remove all doubt because so much misunderstanding happened between them with her silence. He needed her own true words to reorient his memories, because the idea of relearning her and once _again_ finding his memories false was something he didn't think he could come back from.

Ace made for the door, intending to slam it shut behind him loudly enough to drive his point home. But his last glance back, already in the doorway, showed him a glimpse of her face, the suddenly crumpled expression, twisting and hurt like he'd never seen before, and he stopped, stalked back over.

He'd never before felt like he towered over her, never wanted to, but the way she looked up at him now was— he didn't _want_ this, he wanted things to be _normal_ between them, but he no longer had any idea of what that was.

He huffed out an angry breath and knocked his forehead against hers, a little harder than he'd intended. She breathed in like she hadn't in a while, and he couldn't— couldn't look at her right now, wanted to keep hold of his anger, so he threw a look at Max, who to his frustration seemed to understand her even without all these words, and left.

He wanted to punch somebody, get in a scrap to flush some of the anger outta his fuel lines, but Ace was old and wise enough to know what his ribs could take.

* * *

His skin felt tight and angry, like it was too small for his body, and he could tell his face was like a sandstorm from the way people made space for him in the hallways. He'd had no plan on where to go, but found himself go in the direction of the Altar room, needing its quiet so he could _think_.

He didn't get that far.

There was a group of ten, eleven warboys ahead of him, clustered in the narrow hallway. There were two yellow-painted boys in the mix, and another few new faces that must have just arrived with the Wastelander. When Ace came closer he realised they were surrounding two breeders. The young women were standing pressed together, their faces tight, and this was not good, not at all how things were meant to be now.

They hadn't noticed him yet, so he quietened his steps until he joined the back of the group, half a head taller than any of them.

"—not like you have a job now, is it?" one of the warboys said. "We all gotta earn our keep."

"Come on, why you're suddenly all difficult about this?"

"They said—" the stockier young woman looked down, then up at the warboys, "they said we didn't have to, anymore." Ace saw that her shoulders were loose, and angled, and her weight forward on her feet, but she was floating too high on her heels and it would be easy to sweep her or just lift her straight up. She must’ve had a couple lessons that the Vuvalini seemed to be holding, but War wasn’t learned in a day.

“Polaris! D-don’t, make them angry," the other woman whispered, "it’s not like we don’t… you know it’s easier if you don't fight it.”

“Maybe I don’t want easy,” Polaris said, “I’ve done ‘easy’ and it’s not gotten us anywhere. Marienny said them up there have said 'Only if you want to' and _I don't want to_.”

She spotted Ace at the back of the group, and her eyes widened. 

“They did say that,” he said, soft and low, the kind of voice that made all the warboys spin around to face him.

"The Ace!" Lance said, in a voice that wasn't as jovial as he seemed to have intended. "Just in time for a treat, huh? You finally escaped from under the thumb of those wives of Joe? We'll let you breed first!"

Ace's skin was hot and too tight and his whole body _itched_ and he could feel his fist clench. He took a deep breath. Punching Lance right now wouldn't make the women safer, it would put them in the middle of a fight. Of eleven against him in a narrow corridor.

"Nobody's getting bred as don't want to be, and they clearly don't want to be," he said, with an effort not to grind his teeth. Polaris nodded hurriedly in agreement, and after a second, so did the other woman.

“Do you hear that, boys, this is what the Ace says now.” Lance said, and it was almost but not quite mocking. “We gotta listen to what the breeders want. This is what the new Citadel is like, under Imperator Furiosa.”

A noise rose from the ten other war boys, over half of them newly arrived, that almost but not quite sounded like agreement.

“No breeding, no paint, no Tenday... no _War._ ” Lance said, nodding, but he looked like a baby head on a spring, head bobbling in false movement. “Let’s go boys. We’re not wanted here. What was it Kompass said? We can each of us see the truth with our own eyes.”

From what Ace had heard from the pups, the Tenday had been like nothing they’ve had before, but they seemed to take energy from it. He’d met a couple of the injured War boys who’d spoken with rough fondness of the elder and the Tribune who’d attended them, touched base on his own with the black thumbs and green thumbs and all those in between. He’d seen the reactions of his own crew to the truths that the Tribunes and Furiosa laid out about Joe.

But this… this almost traitorous sarcasm. Ace had hoped that all the surviving war boys could just… listen. And hear the ring of truth in the words and the stories. Clearly though, this group hadn’t.

Lance left with his followers, and Ace frowned, especially at the new faces. He needed to speak to Kompass and Austeyr and Rachet, make sure they were spending time with the newly arrived boys, make sure they didn't just let them fall in with people like Lance. He'd been the second of the Ace of Imperator Prime, who’d gotten injured off some stray accident with some thundersticks, and the impression Ace had had of him had been that the War boy was decent at his role. Took care of crew, and good at motivating them. Maybe a little hotheaded, and had always reminded him of Kompass a little and as such Ace would have never thought to hear such insubordination from him.

Maybe it would just take time; and Ace hoped it was simply that, because otherwise it’d meant that they either couldn’t hear truth or that they didn’t _care_. If they couldn’t hear it, then men like the Fixer would be quick to take advantage. If they didn’t care, if a man like Lance didn’t care….

Furiosa was right to have been wary of them.

The two women stayed where they were, giving him uncertain looks as if they weren't sure if they could leave now.

 _They were wary,_ Ace realized, with resignation. Unsure if _he_ was going to make use of this occasion. He took a step back, almost up against the opposite wall, making sure he wasn't blocking them.

"Want me to—" he cleared his throat, "walk with you?"

“We’ll be fine,” Polaris said stiffly. He wasn't sure why her voice reminded him of Kompass all of a sudden, except maybe that he hadn’t touched base with his second since the night of Tenday. Or much of his crew, really.

Ace watched the women walk away and thought the crew were maybe all just waiting on Furiosa. But he remembered the look of those two women just now, and wondered if Furiosa might be waiting on _him_.

It made him sick to his stomach, suddenly, the thought that she might be wary of him. Because he hadn't let himself think that, in those words, whenever he thought about how she didn’t trust him with her plans.

He was thinking about it now. And he couldn’t… he _couldn’t_ let her stay wary of him.

Ace turned and headed back to the room.

* * *

Max watched in silence as Ace left, as Furiosa slumped down to sit where she'd been leaning against the wall. The look the other man had given him had been a lot like the ones they'd exchanged when she'd been trying to do more than her wounds had allowed, that 'back her up' look.

She was crying now, with the clenched jaw and tight, painfully stifled sobs of somebody who barely remembered how to let the emotion out.

Max quietly moved to sit by her side, his bicep lightly brushing against hers. Offering his presence.

"Hey."

She curled in on herself like she couldn't bear the idea that he was witnessing this. And he’d let the moment grow long.

When he didn't say anything, she gradually let herself sink in his direction, until she could tuck her face against his neck. That’s when he let his arm fall around her. He stroked her back with long, soothing passes, trying to ease the painful hitches in her breath.

He thought he understood that this had been necessary - Ace had needed to say these things, and perhaps Furiosa had needed to hear them, so that she could stop saying them to herself. It didn't seem entirely coincidental that it had happened just after Max had returned

Max wasn't really sure how much time had passed before the door opened again. His head jerked up, worried it would be— the boys, or Gale, or anybody, really, but it was Ace again. He looked _exhausted_.

Furiosa wouldn't, or couldn't, look at him. She still had her face buried against Max's neck, her breath shuddering through her.

Ace closed the door behind him and stood there for long moments, large hands clenching and unclenching. Then finally he came toward them, went to his knees before Furiosa. She turned her head on Max's shoulder to look at him, seeming almost fearful of what she'd see.

"I want to think," Ace finally began, mouth moving silently as if struggling to get the words out, "that we woulda helped you, just like that. Because you're our Boss. But—" his hand made an abortive gesture toward hers. "—truth is until Joe was dead - really wasn't immortal - I don't know that all of'us would've. I just wish I coulda… coulda been there for you."

Her eyes spilled over.

"Boss," Ace said, voice hoarse. "Just give me the right specs to this thing, please. Am I your Ace?"

Max had finally worked out that Ace wasn't so much a title as it was a job description, referring to the person an Imperator trusted most. Ace's consternation earlier, when he'd been surprised Max had known about Joe, must have been related to that. It stood to reason that she could only make him her Ace again if she were willing to speak truth to him.

* * *

Furiosa didn't move, and Ace worried that she might not answer at all. Then she straightened, no longer curling into the Wastelander, though his arm stayed around her. She looked up at Ace as if it pained her.

"Do you— do you _want_ to be?" she looked away. She looked as if this was _shredding_ her. "I'd understand if you— After I—"

" _Yes_ ," Ace said fervently, almost a growl, leaning in.

She blindly reached out, her hand landing on his forearm, and squeezed.

"I—" her voice cracked, and she started again, a hoarse whisper. "I was afraid." The admittance felt giant in the room, none of them easy with showing weakness and this was almost difficult to look at. Max stopped breathing for a moment.

Ace felt her words like a punch to his solar plexus, breathless and harsh, but he nodded, taking it in.

"After I…” she twitched her eyes away, “got you, got the guys.. it was more than I ever thought…” She edged away from them some more as if needing more space for saying so, “I'd been alone, and then suddenly not. To have you looking out for me, so that I could have a moment to sleep."

Ace remembered the first times she'd slept near him, how she'd woken up what must have been every half hour at least. Only now thought about how much harder it must have been for her to sleep when she was a warboy quartered in the barracks.

He remembered the night she'd let them all taste the liquor, at the Bullet Farm. Was that— had that been the first night she'd slept properly, in years? Maybe even since she'd been taken from that Green Place of hers?

“It— It was so _good_.." she took a deep, shuddering breath. "I couldn't bear the thought that you'd— that you'd turn on me when you found out about how I felt about— about—" she clenched her hand into a fist, made a frustrated gesture.

"Joe," Ace said softly.

She nodded, her breath hitching, painful-sounding, and had she always struggled to say that name? Had he mistaken it for reverence? "I tried to forget that it.” She looked down, jaw clenched, fighting to control her breathing, “Was based on a lie. Didn't want it to be. And you were — _kind_ ," her mouth twisted over the incriminating word, as she lost the fight, as Ace looked away, and she choked back a sob, "Y-you let me forget about it. By making sure nobody brought up J—him. It was the kindest thing anybody ever did for me."

Ace swallowed, because he didn't know what to do with the way she saw their shared past, with knowing how wrong he'd been while she was still glad of it. He felt like she ought to be angry, or disappointed, at his mistakes, but she wasn't.

“I saw you trying. Saw the crew trying.” Furiosa said this not turning towards him; Ace saw this from his peripheral vision because he couldn’t even raise his head. “That… that _matters_.”

"But not enough to let us ride with you?"

"Every moment I— I wish I'd known a different way."

Ace let out a long breath, because that was it, the best he was going to get, the best there was available to give. There wasn't anything to undo.

He hated that there had been a lie, but maybe they both did the best they could have done with what they'd had available to them at the time.

He reached out to her, slowly, and she flinched a little, but let him cup the back of her head. He waited until her hand came up, and her touch was a little shaky still, but she was already leaning in, and their foreheads meeting felt a little bit like healing, this time.

Ace couldn't bring himself to move away before she wanted him to, let himself be reassured by being allowed to touch her, by being _welcomed_. Then finally she tugged lightly at his neck, guided him to turn and sit against the wall next to her, so she was between Max and himself. Ace felt his breath shudder out of him at the press of her shoulder, the way she pulled him into her.

"Boss," he croaked, choked with the thought of how _soft_ this was, how she shouldn't have to comfort him, he was her _Ace_ , this wasn't _right_. "I'm sorry, I should've—"

"Shh," she hushed him, hand petting the back of his head. Ace risked a glance at the other man, who was sitting calmly pressed against her other side. Was doing Ace the favour of not looking, not judging. Max seemed no softer for seeking comfort from Furiosa earlier that day; she didn't seem to think less of him, either.

Maybe...

Maybe he could have this? Maybe she wouldn't think less of him for bein' so soft as to need this? He gradually felt his spine ease, head sinking slowly until his cheek was pressed against the side of her head. She made a soothing little noise and then let out a deep sigh, her hand never leaving his head.

At some point Max murmured that he needed to go, and Ace felt her nod, but she didn't let go of Ace for a long time. When she finally made a grumbly sound of discomfort, she moved only to pull him down to the mattress, and he let her arrange him how she liked, still so stunned with suddenly being touched by her again. She put him on his back and curled up into his side, her head on his shoulder, one knee pulled up over both his legs, her arm flung over his chest as if she was afraid he'd slip away.

As if he would possibly want to.

"Missed you," she mumbled into his shoulder.

Ace looked up at the ceiling in silent bewilderment. She.. had... missed him?

"You stopped…" her hand made a vague gesture, "you were always so far."

"I was af— I worried," he managed after a long moment. "That I was readin' you wrong. And then you stopped reaching for me."

"Thought you didn't want to be near me," she whispered, and pressed closer.

He tightened his arms around her, hooked his ankle over hers, pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"I missed you too." He replied quietly. You were… you were not supposed to miss people. It was soft. But things were changing and maybe they could be allowed this.

* * *

Rachet stopped in his tracks in the door opening, taking in the scene. The Boss and Ace were all tangled up, more even than he remembered seeing Before. He was relatively new to the crew but even Then, whenever they slept close he could see it had the ease of long familiarity.

After the crew’s argument outside of Furiosa’s rooms after Tenday, the guys couldn’t help but be a little awkward around Ace. Rachet had felt it like an uncomfortable conversational pause he'd had no idea of how to fill; he had noticed how Kompass moved more stiltedly around the man, and he wasn’t sure if either of them had realized that he was almost mirroring how their Boss was around Ace as well. He had seen Kompass opening his mouth as if to speak to Ace when Ace was turned away, but then turning away angrily and going to confer to Austeyr or him instead, about speaking to this or that faction or about preparations around the Citadel.

Rachet had felt a little odd about it, even if a kinda honored; he’s an older war boy, but young for crew, why was Kompass turning to him? He didn’t know as much as Austeyr about Citadel workings and people frequently frustrate him.

But a few days ago Kompass asked him to lead the expedition to the underground mall, and even though the whole thing made his spine _itch_ and feel exposed, Rachet really wanted to help out. As the Boss’ crew, the crew of the Imperator who’d bested Joe, they now outranked everybody living at the towers. So like it or not… even Rachet has to lead. At least he wasn’t made to run around and _talk_ to people like Austeyr’s had to.

Then again, Aus kinda liked talking so it probably worked out.

Rachet had lost track of Ace in the interim, bringing back supplies from the mall and sorting it all out with Stuffs and the Repair boys and whatever needed patching. The older war boy seemed to patrol around the breeders and milkers, around the council members, almost as if at loose ends. And when they’d bedded down at night seemed to hold himself aloof from the rest of them snugged together on the bed, where Furiosa seemed to hold herself more stiffly if Ace was in the room.

So this current closeness with Furiosa looked new, they hadn't been this tangled up in a while.

Rachet nodded, pleased. _They've made up, then_.

He went over to place the bottle of milk he'd been tasked with bringing by her side. Looked at the duo, thinking, and then shoved himself up against Ace’s other side. The warboy had looked like he’d needed a bit of being squished, but there was nobody else in the room. Ace looked at him sideways but seemed to relax into it.

Furiosa smiled at Rachet across Ace's chest, and his insides did something funny. Squirmed a bit and then settled, like he’d hadn’t felt since they’d ridden out on that milk and produce run so very many days ago.

* * *

Kompass discovered that in their absence, apparently the Boss had forgiven Ace. They were curled up together in a way that looked— that looked soft, but if the Boss were doin' it it couldn't be wrong, she wouldn't do that to her Ace.

Austeyr came in behind him and made a 'huh' sound.

Furiosa made a beckoning gesture, and Kompass realised they'd been hovering in the doorway. Austeyr was already moving towards her when he glanced back, rolled his eyes, and dragged Kompass after him.

* * *

Ace could feel Furiosa gather herself, once they were all settled in around her. As if she were about to leap. She clearly had something to say. He petted her head lightly, hoping it might help her feel ready to say whatever was on her mind.

"I'm sorry I— I didn't know another way," she finally said softly into the sounds of their quiet breathing. Ace could feel Rachet tense up, clearly uneasy with the Boss apologising, and he patted the younger man. Furiosa continued haltingly, "It wasn't— it wasn't your fault that I couldn't—that you didn't know."

" _Boss_ ," Austeyr protested sadly, a little helpless.

"I'm grateful that I had you."

" _Have_ us," Kompass rumbled, his face pressed against the back of her neck. “Don’t need to apologize, the whole thing was…”

“Messed up? Broken?” Rachet suggested.

"It's better now," Ace decided.

It would be. It had to be.


	27. Camming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Camming—The act of rotating into place until wedged or tight.
> 
> _Ace woke several hours later, sometime not long after sunset, and the heavy weight on his chest turned out to be Furiosa._

Ace woke several hours later, sometime not long after sunset, and the heavy weight on his chest turned out to be Furiosa. She'd half draped herself over him, and while the others had apparently left at some point - what he could see through the window suggested it wasn't _too_ late - he'd fallen asleep right along with her.

Best sleep he'd had in a long time. Ace took a little time to look at her, her sleeping form pressed up close against him, so obviously pleased to be there that he could feel it filling in the cracks inside of him. They were all right. They were going to be, at least. He was her Ace. It was identity and acceptance and responsibility all at once and it settled him into place.

He lightly rested his hand against her upper back, as always surprised of how his hand spanned her entire shoulder blade. With all her power and blazing heat, she was still never as large as he perceived her to be.

A shadow moved by the window, and it was the Wastelander, waking up too. Ace could see the gleam of his eyes as he watched Furiosa. The Wastelander might not have taken his place, ill-suited for the role as he was, but he seemed to care as much as any crew and had brought back for them both resources and men.

Ace was suddenly restless. The thought of Lance being the one to influence those newly arrived Warboys sat uneasily in his stomach. They might be open to the new way of doing things, but not if Ace didn't seek them out, if Furiosa’s crew didn't use their influence. If they let Lance have his way, the twitches of resistance might turn into a real rebellion. He needed to get up and take stock of their new situation.

He started trying to edge out from under Furiosa, and she made a sleepy, disgruntled little noise that made him smile. Her hand came across his chest to tuck against his ribs, effectively keeping him where he was. It was cold in her quarters, and she clearly disagreed with the source of heat trying to move away. His eyes found Max in the gloom. Ace motioned his head in invitation, and after what felt like a long time, the other man slipped down from the ledge.

If it had been one of the warboys, Ace might have chuckled with the careful way they cooperated to detach Furiosa from him and let her latch onto the other man instead. But Max was quiet, a little tense with Ace's closeness. Once he'd taken Ace's place and Ace moved away, he relaxed, murmuring quietly to Furiosa, pulling blankets back over them both. 

Ace left them to tangle up in each other, confident for the first time in weeks that there would be space for him by her side again later.

He found Austeyr, Rachet and Kompass in the area both the remaining and new warboys had been given for use, well above the old barracks deep in the bowels of the Citadel towers. It was far more luxurious than the barracks, not nearly so damp and cold at night, but he saw a few warboys stand around uneasily, chatting and feeling each other out, figuring out hierarchy. Then from one of the doorways—

"Ace! Old man!"

He spun around.

"Treb!"

His friend darted in for a lightning-quick embrace and a slap on the shoulder, then back.

"Don't sound so surprised, man, did you give up on me?"

"You know I'd never give up on you," Ace assured him solemnly.

"And I'm never gonna let you down," Treb replied, grinning. Ace wasn't used to seeing him without paint - wasn't used to seeing himself without paint, really, and clearly Treb himself was uneasy with it.

"So what's been going on with you?"

“There’s so much I havta catch you up on!” Treb glanced over the war boys, “It’s been a long couple’a days, lemme tell ya.”

“You too?” Ace said, with feeling.

* * *

Dag found herself sitting with her knees pulled in when Cheedo and Gale came up to her. She waited for them to say something but they just sat next to her with matching sighs and simply waited. Dag folded her arms around her legs more and rested her chin on them. The wind was moving a bit of hair on the side of her head and she scratched it a bit and tried to put it behind her ear. It slipped out again and that seemed like just an additional indignity.

To her right, Cheedo was twisting her fingers into her wristlet, the matching one to Dag’s. To her left, Gale was looking mildly off at the horizon, scanning it in sweeps. It looked habitual. Dag returned her gaze back to center and stared off into the middle distance some more, waiting for them to yell at her.

“They shouldn’t be painted.” She blurted out, when they didn’t speak.

“There’s lead in the paint, yes.”

“The pups shouldn’t be painting themselves like _Joe_.”

“I don’t think that means,” Cheedo glanced up and then back down at her fingers, “that you can just yell at the pups for it.”

She’d found some pups earlier that day that were smearing themselves with the fine grey clay that could be found around the pipes leading out of the aquifer. Dag had told them not to do it, gave them all the reasons but they just gave her stubborn faces and continued slathering it over themselves. And maybe they looked like they were about to cry but Dag felt like that too. _Why_ would they paint themselves like that abuser? Why would they do even _anything_ reminiscent of him?

Maybe she'd gotten a little loud.

“But someone had to _say_ it.” Dag insisted. Someone always had to say the hard truths and keep them all from being worn down in the Vault from all the pressure that Joe and his attendants put on them to just be quiet and do as they’re told. It used to be Angharad and her, both.

Now it’s only her; and Dag found herself harried with wondering how to make up for Angharad’s absence. She felt alone. Capable folded herself easily into healing and Toast amongst the Vuvalini and even Cheedo seemed to have buried herself in War pups.

“Who were you saying it for though?” Gale asked.

“For _them_ of course! How could we let them grow up like… like.”

“Think they’d go their own way if you push them that hard.”

“At least it made some of them _think_.” Dag insisted, remembering the way a couple of the pups hesitated.

It was silent for a while.

“Did you see the Ace today?" Gale said finally. "Sunburned. Red as Capable’s hair all across the shoulders.”

Dag opened her mouth to ask what that had to do with anything, but then recalled how painfully red some of the pups were. Some had been grimacing as they smoothed on the mud, as if touching anything to their skin hurt. Dag remembered how much her left shoulder had hurt after the first day out of the Vault, the cheek that had been turned to the rig window. How Keeper had taken one look at her and dug out a shawl so she could cover herself.

"The warboys won't say anything, I don't think," Gale mused. "They're supposed to just bear pain. Complaining would be weakness to them."

“Mmph.” Dag replied sullenly, mouth returning to press against her knees. She can’t say that they should be silent, because she believes in speaking out. But the war pups shouldn’t paint themselves. None of them should paint themselves or style themselves in any way like Joe.

This was their _chance_ , like that Feng said, to put in new laws, to finally _change_ things for the better, all the plans and dreams they had while in the Vault. So why wasn’t it _working_? Why was it taking so _slow_? Had life under Joe been so good to the schlangers that they didn't want change?

It was a terrifying thought and it made Dag want to push every war boy off the Citadel like Angharad pushed that war boy off the Rig.

What would Angharad have said? _We are not things_.

Those war boys they talked to, Furiosa’s crew, they’d seemed nice until suddenly foulness came out of their mouths, cutting her and her sisters down to units of ‘worth’. Into being a _Thing_. That meeting they had, ‘Tenday’, making that room loud with their noise and their yelling and remembering all the killings and dreadful things. Was that all really necessary? Did all that violence really need to be storied and celebrated?

Could the culture of War _really_ help make them a new Green Place, or would it just be more anti-seeds, planted?

"When you didn't want to wear the white cloth anymore, did you just.. take it off?" Gale said.

"Yes? It kept us exposed, vulnerable." Dag frowned and looked down at her heavy canvas trousers. "Well, not before we got these."

"Mm."

"But paint is not like clothes. It's not like we're taking away their trousers!" But even as she said it, she remembered the way that the tiny War Pup’s shoulders suddenly became hunched in on themselves, uncertain, when they’d first got the paint removed.

Remembered the way even the big warboy, Furiosa's Ace, had looked uneasy, as if he'd felt naked but was trying to be all right with it.

Dag knew what it was like, to be naked and trying to be all right with it. She'd just… never imagined a warboy, let alone _that_ warboy, would feel that way. “It’s not like we’re Joe; we _can’t_ be Joe to them, it just doesn’t work that way!”

“Said nothing like that,” Gale said quietly, still scanning the wastes. “Nothing about Joe at all.”

Dag’s mouth clicked shut.

But didn’t it all go back to Joe? How could war boys be anything but Joe’s? He'd made them. Painted them up like toys, set them up to fight…

And then Dag remember Angharad calling them _Battle Fodder_. Thought about how she thought of them just now as _toys_ , some _thing_ made, some _thing_ they needed to change into some _thing_ better, an any _thing_.

Maybe. Maybe also... _They_ are not things, too.

But she didn’t like looking at them, all whitened and yelling and large. She didn’t really want to be around them, and she didn’t want to trust them, and—

And—

“I’m scared,” Dag finally admitted, quietly. “And I’m angry.”

“Yeah,” Cheedo replied, leaning into her shoulder. “I…” She started saying, stopped, and when Dag turned to look, Cheedo swallowed hard and blinked hard, “Dag, I never feel like I can thank you enough for. For covering for me. Taking my place when Joe—”

“Shush,” Dag dropped her head to rest against Cheedo’s. She didn’t really have the energy to think about it.

Gale patted her gently on her far shoulder.

* * *

Dag came to a halt in front of where Ace was sitting on a low ledge. He looked up at her, maybe a little warily at the way she towered over him. She supposed that didn't happen much.

"Warboy."

He raised his eyebrows, and she saw the way he flexed his huge hands, put them on his knees as if deliberately showing her they weren't near weapons. Not that it made much of a difference; he had to be twice the size of her. He could break her like a twig if he'd had a mind to, and the only thing stopping him was that Furiosa would not be happy with him if he did. She hoped that was enough.

(She still couldn't think about him curled up behind Furiosa, about those huge, rough hands on her. How could she stand it? But his desire to please Furiosa made him one of the more reliable supporters of the council, and she supposed that showed that Furiosa's choices had been worth it.)

"Tribune Dag."

Huh. So he'd remembered that. It momentarily threw her off, but then she remembered what she'd sought him out for.

She dug in the cargo pocket of her trousers, noticing his uneasy attention, half on her face, half on her hand. His muscles tensed and corded. Wait, did he think she had a weapon? Did he think she would hurt him, just like that?

She'd been so worried about her own safety around the warboys, and that of her sisters, that it had never occurred to her they might be wary in return. What did this man have to fear of her? What could she possibly do to him?

"Here." She thrust her hand at him, and he blinked when he saw she was holding something green.

His hand came up slowly to accept what she was offering.

"Thank you, Tribune," he said, with no inflection to indicate if he was pleased or surprised or anything, really.

"It's called Aloe," she blurted. "You put the sap on—" she started gesturing at him, then broke off at his reflexive hand-twitch in the direction of a hand flying toward him, and indicated her own shoulders instead. "Where it's red. It helps."

He looked from her to the green thing now cradled carefully in his hand. Rubbed a thumb over the cutting’s surface, felt the sticky sap there. Looked back up at her.

"Thank you, Tribune. That is kind."

She startled a little, because he wouldn't have gotten sunburnt if they hadn't insisted he take off the paint, and she'd expected that to get thrown in her face. Apparently he didn't see it that way. He thought this was kindness, not guilt.

Maybe it _was_ kind? She didn't know how she felt about that.

"If you— if you show the pups, I will bring them some too."

He looked surprised, and that gave her pause. Was it really surprising to him that it mattered to her that they were in pain? But he just nodded slowly.

He waited for her to step back before pushing to his feet, but she still skittered back a few more steps as the bulk of him rose, at just how much space he took up, until she was almost up against the opposite side of the corridor. When he halted immediately she was struck dumb with the realisation that apparently he didn't _want_ her to be scared or uncomfortable. She hastily walked away, not sure what to think.

* * *

"They're using mud. From down by the aquifers. Is there any way we can stop them?" Capable said.

"Well Joe used to have the mixers add the lead to make it extra white and stay fixed in place," Gale said. "At least, that's why I hope he did it, or he was even more vile than we thought."

"So there's no lead in the mud? No reason to tell them not to use it?" Toast said.

Gale shook her head.

They looked at each other unhappily

"It doesn't work very well though, does it? It dries and flakes off," Janey said thoughtfully. "So maybe we encourage it for when they have to go into the sun, and they might decide it's too much fuss the rest of the time."

"I think that's going to work better than trying to take it away from them," Capable said.

Dag looked unhappy.

"Here's an interesting thing," Janey said after a long moment. "After I was done giving the self defence lesson to the mothers this morning, there was somebody waiting for me. One of the older warpups, Rett."

"Oh?"

"Asked if he could join the lessons."

“But the lessons are ours!” Toast shot out. Dag was cringing back and nodding, fingers taut against Cheedo’s.

"Who is 'us,' would you say?"

"Us. And the milking mothers. The women from the breeder court."

"Rett is about your size," Janey nodded at Toast. "They're not all big lads. Some of them need our sort of techniques to not be vulnerable."

“Just by being war boys, they’re not vulnerable,” Toast shot back, “The system protects them.”

"Did you meet Oti?" Cheedo said softly. And the Dag blinked at her.

“Did you meet Razor, or Kukri?” Gilly spoke up, from where she was listening, towards the back.

Toast opened her mouth and then closed it, thinking. Said, “No, I haven’t met them, but if you’re implying what I think you’re implying… what I said is still true. The Citadel protects them."

"The Citadel protected those who harmed them, too; protected them more."

"Outliers. They may not be things but _we_ have a right to feel safe.”

"If you want to make the Citadel _one_... not just a place but a people," Vicky said slowly, "I don't think it's a good idea to split people into those who have a right to feel safe and those who will have to fend for themselves. Everyone has a right to safety."

"If you don't want them in your lesson," Gilly nodded to Janey, "I can give a separate one."

“But then they’ll still know what we know,” Dag muttered sullenly, "Can't the Ace teach them? Or Furiosa's other crew."

"They are running ragged organizing the fighters we have. I've got time to teach the young ones, and the rest as needs it," Gilly said. "We've got a war party bearing down on us." she gestured at the window, and her eyes looked as if she were far away, somewhere deep in the desert maybe, or in the past, or both. "I think that if we don't start treating everybody here as if they're on our side, they never will be."

“How could you know that though.” Toast said, “You haven’t lived here, haven’t observed how the Citadel works, haven’t—”

“ _Because of what was the Green Place_.” Gilly broke in. “You’ve spent most of your lives locked up in the Vault, circling your backs to each other because everyone else was the enemy, but you’re out of the Vault now and you _must_ find allies. You can't run this place while considering half of who lives here your enemy."

She took in the large eyes of the sisters.

"We spent ten years watching our people slowly dwindle in the desert because we couldn't see anybody as potential allies.“

“Maybe the Green Place would have still soured.” Dag said. “Even without internal fighting.”

“I’m talking about us seeking allies out of the Green, _after_ the souring." Gilly retorted, “I’m talking about watching Keeper trying and trying to plant her seeds and not finding any such place for them to take root. But we’re here now, this place with water. And maybe seeds.”

"You need to give their trust a place to take root and to grow," Gale said.

" _Which trust?_ " Dag asked sharply.

"The trust that came and asked if I would teach them," Janey said. "And the trust that washed off their paint because we told them it was toxic."

"I gave the Ace some Aloe," Dag said consideringly. "For his sunburn. I think he was really surprised."

“That aloe worked like that?" Capable asked, “Or that you gave it to him?”

“Yeah,” Dag replied, not looking at anyone. “That.”

Capable set her jaw and looked at Gilly, “I can’t speak for anyone else, but I would like it if anyone _that asked politely_ for lessons be given them. If we don't offer them strength, the war party might. And I can’t help but feel that it’ll do them good to get to know more of the Many Mothers.”

Gilly took a glance around at the array of faces, conflicted and uncertain and scared, but said, “Alright then. Again, I’ll be hosting a separate session. They don’t have to disrupt this space of yours.”

Cheedo spoke up suddenly, “I want to be in the session you’d like to teach. And maybe… Gilly, I have some questions, well, _concerns_ that. That...”

“We can speak of it later,” Gilly said, and Cheedo looked relieved but still nervous and distant.

* * *

"Boss, think there might be trouble brewin'."

"Always is," Furiosa sighed. "All right, what'd you hear?"

"Treb says Lance has been hanging around the new boys, trying to get them dissatisfied."

"Hmm."

"If he's gonna do anything, it's when we can least stand it, during the siege. Lance knows that if the Imperator that's coming somehow comes out on top, he might make Imperator himself."

"We should just fucking shoot him, but he probably already has a few supporters," Furiosa said, thinking it over.

"Probably," Ace agreed. "I've asked Austeyr and Kompass to spend time with the new boys, don't leave them too open for Lance's influence."

“It should be brought up during Council.” Furiosa looked at Ace and found herself so relieved that they were at this point again, bouncing ideas and experience off each other. Without Ace those long days when so much was happening in the Citadel was like walking around blind, feeling herself forward and not having enough eyes on things, especially when people kept insisting she stay bed-bound and resting.

* * *

"Great, Marienny, if you and your group can take care of the sand buckets for fire control?"

Furiosa listened to the Council that night, as topics moved through concerns about the preparation and defense against the incoming war parties, wondering if all this was flexible enough to withstand attacks from within as well. They need to bring up the concerns about Lance sooner rather than later.

"We'll get the pups to help us," Marienny nodded.

"We'll make sure the milking room is ready to be nursery for all the youngest," Britt said. "It's the most easily secured." The two women nodded at each other. Many of the former breeders wanted to help defend the Citadel, if their children would be safe during it. Or at least as safe as they could be made.

"Now, Furiosa, you said you had something?"

Furiosa looked at Kompass, who nodded at her and began speaking.

“...and we’re pretty sure Lance is leading them.” Kompass finished off his list of names. “We’re keeping an eye on them but we all think that he’s going to make a move once the war parties arrive.”

“Why is this the first we’ve heard of this?” Toast asked, “Did it develop so soon after those war boys arrived? Did they bring it with them?”

Max looked disturbed and flickered his gaze around, landing on Gilly and Vicks. “Thought... those who were bringing the jaw back. Thought I took care of them.”

“No, it started before you came back,” Cheedo said, looking up, “They, they were already meeting up before.”

“And you didn’t think to mention it?” Furiosa said, voice sharp.

Dag added, “This is not a secret to be kept. We’re in danger.”

Cheedo glanced at Ace, at Furiosa, at Kompass, “With how unsettled things were… Those who were giving me the information are in even more danger.”

“But we could have been preparing." Furiosa had settled back, looking more thoughtful than her tone conveyed.

“We’re _already_ preparing! But what we needed to know is what they’re planning to do, and who the rest of them were. And we can’t find that out if they think they’re being watched.” And now she took a breath and straightened her back, “You’re missing five names by the way, of those who’re following Lance.”

Kompass came to attention and focused on her in a way that was maybe a little unsettling. “What. Which five?”

"Um—" Cheedo faltered at the sudden intensity of the warboy. He was very big, leaning toward her, and his scars stood in sharp, gruesome contrast on his torso. They looked much more alarming without white paint. She reared back in her seat just slightly, but named the five and she barely finished before he was rising.

But he seemed to realize something and sat back down. “You mentioned trying to know what they’re doing. You have their plans?”

“Y-yeah.” she glanced at Furiosa, but the older women didn't interfere. Apparently Cheedo was expected to deal with this warboy directly. “The person watching for me, he says Lance is generally a hot-head."

Kompass nodded,and Cheedo felt her courage gather at the attentive way he listened, gave weight to her words.

"I think if given the chance he would meet up with the war parties. We can take advantage of that…” As she further outlined her thoughts she didn't notice Furiosa's look of approval.

* * *

“I think you’re moving too fast. Too obviously,” Oti said quietly.

“You think they’d notice? Breeders are all too dumb for that and that Imperator leans on her crew to notice things _for_ her." Lance felt sweat trickle down his spine but held his bravado like a fizzing thunderstick. He tried to ignore the Fixer’s gaze. He knew the man was watching from around the corner, evaluating him, weighing him for how many supplies to give to their cause. He stood up straighter.

If he could give the war party the Citadel, he'd make Imperator for sure. Maybe even Prime. Have everyone indebted to him, even the Fixer. That man would not be pushing him so hard to be better if he didn’t have need of him, Lance was sure of it.

“But you say the Ace saw you with those breeders, and the way I hear it she took him back into her bed."

“I hear she made that Wastelander her new Ace instead.” Lance snorted, “Everyone has to get their axle greased, just because Ace still gets Used doesn't mean she listens to him. It doesn’t mean a thing of his standing. You listen to the breeders you plug?”

The war boys around him laughed and settled down, sharing the extra aqua cola and food he’d swiped for them, and Lance didn’t think he’d have any trouble being Prime. He understood these war boys and how to make them fight for him and how to take care of them. How to make their hearts light.

There’s little enough of that in this Wasteland.

Lance felt the eyes move away from him and he sighed in relief. That probably meant the Fixer was satisfied.They’ll have support. If they didn't defend their place, those breeders would have them all thrown out into the wastes without so much as paint to protect them.

* * *

* * *

Max had spent the day evaluating defense positions in the West tower, mostly on his own. Well… in the unwelcome company of the Organic Mechanic, who had gained in death a persistence that no living person could have possessed. By the end of the day Max was frayed and exhausted, ready to bolt out of the Citadel and disappear into the Wasteland if he hadn't been so sure the OM would stick with him. Out there in the silence it might be even worse.

He finished up his round and headed back to the council room, clenching his teeth as he crossed one of the air bridges with the Organic Mechanic screaming in his face.

_You're gonna be sorry when the wounded start pouring in, gonna have to just watch 'em die without me, bloodbag! Bleeding yourself dry won’t be enough…_

Max flinched away and tried to shake the image away and it came loose, finally, being able to blink it away.

What he saw after was Furiosa was sitting with Gilly and Vicks, and Max felt a wash of pleasure at the thought that he'd been able to bring her two more of her people. She'd lost her green place, but at least there were enough of the Vuvalini to bring their knowledge here, their stories. They were talking together quietly, but the cadence of Furiosa's voice carried, and he focused on it.

The Mechanic continued speaking but it was like his words increasingly came from very far away and Max watched the man curiously as he got more and more red-faced from his screaming.

He blinked, again, and headed towards Furiosa.

After reporting to her, Max drifted to the window in the council room, not keen to step away from whatever buffer she created to let him have some peace from that ghost.

At some point Kompass came in to report his own findings, arms full of a giant pot of stew for the council members and bookended by Austeyr and Rachet with their own armfuls of bowl-like things, mealworm biscuits, and buckets of water. They handed out a few bowls, and four or five people would gather around it with their spoons.

Max waited for everyone to pick theirs, but found himself surprised when the crew made up a last bowl, from the looks of it formerly a piece of car bumper, and headed towards him. He watched with quiet surprise as they settled by him in the wide window ledge, offering him a spoon, passing over a biscuit.

Rachet set the bowl down where everyone could reach.

The crew chatted quietly while they ate, about defenses and training war pups and what they thought the warparty would be like when it arrived. When it was quiet for a moment, Max cleared his throat.

"Why, um, why would Ace tell me not to…" Max gestured in the direction of Furiosa chatting with Gilly, "to— erm, to touch her?"

Austeyr frowned at him.

"When?"

"Yesterday, after I, hmm, got here. After you and—" he handwaved at Kompass, "brought her to her quarters."

"It's... well, Ace's job to make sure new crew don't… Make her uncomfortable."

Oh. Max barely had memory of the moment he'd came in, beyond the sudden relief from the ghost's silence and the sight of her. He supposed maybe it had been kind of…

"Sometimes with new crew she'll go all..." Austeyr gestured at his face, made wide eyes, a frozen expression. "And ya didn't exactly give her time or space to stop ya."

"Lucky she didn't break yer nose, man," Kompass grunted. 

Max dimly saw himself clamp his hands around her head, her startled expression.

_Oh. Yes._

He'd barely paid attention to Ace afterward, attention still on Furiosa getting swept out of the room as if she needed protection from him. Now he remembered the man's slanted expression, the words _can't just touch her like that._

He'd thought the man was jealous, and perhaps he was, but he hadn't been trying to get Max away from Furiosa - he'd been trying to teach him _better_. Trying to make sure he didn't make Furiosa uncomfortable. Maybe even make him better crew? And that had been _before_ Furiosa had reassured Ace that he hadn't been replaced, that she still wanted him as her Ace.

He wondered how a culture so steeped in disposing of people when they had stopped being useful could have created a man so keen to make people better than they were.

* * *

Rachet followed Aus and Kompass, arms around a corner of bumper with the edges folded up and sanded to function as a large makeshift bowl. It was stew tonight, which was always nice, and makes more parts of the beans and lizard chewable.

They distributed the meal to the council members, and then the crew’s second-in-command nodded towards the window ledge where the man from the wasteland sat.

Austeyr went over quickly enough, but Rachet hung back. He was still unsure around the stranger, Max, he called himself, who usually looked twitchy and ill at ease, like he didn’t know whether to trust the crew and didn’t know how to react to how they protected their Boss, always double checking like he didn't think her own crew could keep her safe, and that was an _insult,_ that was what it was.

Aus was already talking to the guy in a quiet chatter, “...the pups are learning so quick too, I think a couple are going to turn into good shots, you can always tell by the types of mistakes they make and how they adjust.”

Rachet carefully balanced the bowl on the ledge by the man’s hip and presented a spoon.

Max looked up at him a bit awkwardly and reached to take it out of his hand.

Austeyr nodded and hummed in reply, and then went on to talk about some strangeness when the Wastelander first arrived.

He was frankly confused, Rachet was, with all the humming and wordless sounds, but he trusted Austeyr even if the lancer’s shot had been going wide for awhile ever since he’d started growing friends on his side. Rachet wasn't looking forward to when his own tumors started puffing up, it was always a surprise where they’d appear; with luck they wouldn't affect his usefulness.

Max stared at him, with an increasing furrow on his forehead and Rachet just frowned in return.

Austeyr eyed them both, “Hey Max, you were good with the cushion, back there, yeah?”

“Mngh?”

“Back in the room, on your ledge.”

The man just turned to him with a shrug and a nod.

“Did you know Rachet here fetched it for you?” Austeyr asked innocently.

Kompass, cheeks puffed with chewing, was looking amused Rachet stuffed another spoonful of stew in his mouth and looked away. Whatever else he might be uncertain of, this man helped get their Boss back to them in one piece, despite the entire war party and the Immortan Joe himself baying for her death, gave her his blood when her death had seemed certain, and somehow finding, in all the vastness of the wasteland, more crew.

Rachet could count. He knew how tentative their position was, how the stress creased the eyes of the women who’d come back with their Imperator. He knew how few War Boys there were in the Citadel now and he’d seen how vicious raiders could be in the quest for water. This man was _important,_ the women had told him so during Tenday.

When Rachet ran the restocking run to the underground mall, him and two of the lesser injured, he'd found himself telling the others, _go ahead, I’ll meet you at the rubber stores,_ pausing at the entrance to the “Sears”. There were still bits and pieces left, after many thousand-days of salvage, and he’d found an almost emptied pillow cover for some chair. Small rips of foam was still inside, shredded, but the cover itself was intact.

And Rachet had started going through the rooms.

The bones of sofas, chairs, mattresses still stood in the graveyard of the store and it echoed as Rachet went through them, examining the struts and leftovers. They still were not completely picked clean. There was still small pieces of softness here and there and he'd spent a good long while gathering them up until the empty cover he had was full.

When he'd sewn it shut with small, careful stitches and brought it back to Furiosa’s room, he'd placed it on the ledge the man liked to sit on and wondered if it would be enough.

“Do you think it’s okay,” Rachet had asked her.

“Better than okay,” Furiosa murmured when she caught sight of it. But she’d been tired and fallen back asleep and Rachet had chosen to keep all further uncertainties to himself. She didn’t need his worries.

Max looked at him now, with some surprise, and Rachet swore he would strangle Aus if he mentioned—

“Actually he more like made it.”

Rachet did his best to glare at Austeyr with his face overheating and no paint to hide behind. Maybe he could say it’s just redness from the sun, his head and ears are all pinked anyway, but now his cheeks were also warm with heat. Miss Gale didn't want them to use the paint anymore and he wasn't sure why, just that it was important; and the Boss agreed, so they didn't. But he _hated_ it right now.

Aus’ teeth were extremely white in his grin and if they'd been eating anywhere else but the council room, Rachet would have tackled him. They’re in Council though and representing both Furiosa and the war boys.

His shoulders tried to crawl up around his ears.

"Boss wants you to stay," he mumbled, “Thought that, maybe, if you saw you had a space...”

A new spoon scoops into the bowl. Rachet looked at it. Max was staring at the stew with his mouth twitching, looking inexplicably charmed.

Rachet didn't know what in V8 was so charming about stew unless it was in your belly already.

 _Strange wastelander stray,_ he thought, and jammed his own spoon in his mouth so that he didn’t say anything else incriminating.

Just then Ace walked in, went to Furiosa to report his work of the day. When he was done he looked at the four men on the ledge, then at the level of food in the bowls around the council circle.

Austeyr and Max moved a little to make space on their ledge, and Ace walked over, took the space they'd created for him. Rachet nudged the bowl to where Ace could reach it and handed him a mealworm biscuit. Ace hummed in thanks, the tension seeming to fade from his shoulders, and tucked in.

Austeyr just barreled into another conversation, voice a low murmur as he talked about his day with the War Pups and how Kompass had wanted to stay behind and make sure they get proper rations. Kompass was trying to insert his own comments but his mouth was full and it was mostly incoherent.

Max seemed to understand anyway and grunted his questions and quips.

Rachet watched as Austeyr gestured widely with his loaded spoon, and Max caught his wrist to hold his hand still when it passed near his face, ate the stew that was on the spoon. Austeyr made an outraged noise, and the others laughed.

“Such a _feral._ It's like I found you in the Wasteland.”

Max raised an eyebrow and hummed, amused. Rachet realised the twitchiness of the man seemed to have almost disappeared. He wasn't glancing at empty space all the time anymore like before.

“Mynou wold do th’ samgh.” Kompass muttered around his food, cheeks puffed. “Domph lywe.”

It wasn't not their usual complement of crew, but Rachet knew that most’ve arrived to the gates already. You could only drive the road in front of you, and perhaps their rig now included this man riding on one of their perches.

They’d make it enough.

* * *

* * *

The days were a blur of preparations. They knew the war party was coming, just not _when_ , it could be any moment now and the breathless tension of it got to everybody.

"You know what we need tonight?" Many said in the morning council meeting. "A story circle."

Gale murmured approvingly. "Bit of distraction for those as want it."

"Shall I do it in the Wheel room? They just moved a lot of benches in there."

"Might as well. The warboys will feel welcome there, I hope?" Gale met Ace's eyes, and he nodded, "and you don't have to bring your little ones up all these stairs."

* * *

Stuffs gave the two women the cloth they'd asked for. Like the former wives, they'd been looking for something more substantial to cover themselves. He was trying hard not to look at them weirdly. He'd never seen anybody with a body even remotely like his, soft and heavy. They were looking around with large eyes, as if everything was new and wonderful, and he supposed it was.

They'd explained how they'd been kept in quarters high up in one of the towers, and he wondered at how they’d been kept if they found his storage and these war boy halls so interesting.

One of them handed over the bottle of milk he'd agreed to trade the cloth and the boots for.

"You have so much here, we'll send some of the others down too, if you're willing to trade for more milk.“

Stuffs nodded. “That’s good trade, it’d be in high demand.” War boys don’t usually get a chance at milk once they’re old enough to walk. He swung the bottles onto his shelves carelessly; the glass was of solid make.

But the ‘clank!’ made the Milkers wince. And when he plopped the boots and cloth onto a table for them to look over he saw the women make a face. It made Stuff’s shoulder rise around his ears.

“Not many treat that so carelessly.” The one named Britt mentioned.

Stuffs just shrugged, not looking at them, and pushed the bottles into a slightly nicer arrangement. There was a horrible screech on the metal. "These are just Things, there’s more valuables.”

“What’s more valuable than milk, than boots, than good clothes?” The milkers pulled the items towards them, admiringly, draping it against themselves.

Stuffs shook his head, they can’t understand. He made to his post again and muttered under his breath, “...freedom.”

“Freedom?”

He started, and glanced behind him and there was the shorter milker, eyes curious. Quiet feet, that one.

She held out the clothes, the boots, “Isn’t that what these are?”

“No?” Stuffs stared at her with incomprehension, “These are just basic—” he broke off, and looked at what they were wearing.

“I guess…” Stuffs looked at the Storage he guarded. “I guess for some.”

“Not for you?” Mellie glanced at his gear.

Stuffs shrugged, uneasy. Lowered his voice because it’s a silly wish, made near impossible because of how large he’d become. “I’d like to, maybe, someday, run. Maybe climb. Maybe even, even just see the horizon again.”

“You haven’t? I would’ve thought—” Mellie looked around at all the luxuries he’d guarded, “Would’ve thought you’d have more than enough chance to.”

“Not for a long time, not once they saw I could grow big. I have to stay here to guard it. They have a bed just inside the door for me, they move it out when it’s time to sleep.”

“…but things have changed. Furiosa’s team is changing things.”

“Enough for me to move, freely? Don’t think I can,” Stuffs shifted, nervous, “I don’t think you can understand it, see what that’s like.”

The two women looked at each other, frowning.

“Why… it’s just stepping out, right?”

And he looked at her, afraid, “But this, this is all I have. What if it’s taken? What’d I have left?” He flung a large arm out, “I can’t do War.”

“Don’t know about that,” Britt huffed. “You look plenty strong and they wouldn’t have set you to guard if you weren’t.”

“And people don’t necessarily need to do War,” Mellie suggested quietly.

Britt glanced at Mellie, who just shrugged at her, jaw set. Then turned back, “How about this: We’ll watch over it for you, while you go take a look.”

It sounded tempting, but Stuffs hesitated for a long long time.

* * *

Stuffs looked out the window, the sunset was even more amazing than in his memories and he swallowed hard trying to push away the prickle at his eyes. The light in his magazine was brought in via an air channel and mirrors, a sad third-hand light compared to seeing the sky for himself.

 _It was good of the women to offer him this_ , he thinks, maybe he could ask for them to stand for him again?

“It’s good that they trust you,” a voice said casually, from the shadows.

Stuffs pressed his back against the window, wanting safety, darting his eyes around to try to find where that voice came from because it sounded like—

The Fixer skittered his limbs out of the shadows and leaned against a wall near him. “A mediocre sunset this time, for sure, but we can get you out here to see more.”

Stuffs stared at him, and pressed back further against the window, almost not sure if he’d rather just fall out.

“Ask for them to hold your post tomorrow morning. Say you want to watch the sunrise.”

“Will…” Stuffs swallowed, not sure what the Fixer wanted out of him, and not sure he’d be able to provide, “Will I get to see it? The sunrise?” If he couldn’t provide for the Fixer, would the man decide that Stuffs was better… replaced?

“We’ll have the meeting in a room with a window,” the Fixer promised. “There’s some people that I think we should all talk to, get us all on the same page.”

Stuffs nodded quickly, not really thinking, just wanting the man to go away.

When he did, Stuffs went quickly back to his post, and found the milkers there. They seemed light-hearted and chatting with some of the newly named Tribunes, and when they looked to him, they’d included him in their smiles and their conversations. But to be honest Stuffs’ mind was only half there.

He was not sure what tomorrow morning might bring, but his gut told him he would regret it.

He wanted to watch the dawn, though.

* * *

When the story circle was about to begin, Max found a comfortable corner, not too near anybody he didn't know, and settled in to listen. It wasn't that he was particularly eager to hear storytelling, but the ghost was easier to ignore in a crowd.

The breeders were talking among themselves, figuring out an order from what he could hear, and the Organic Mechanic was sleazing all up close to his ear, making disgusting comments about them. He knew way more about their bodies than Max ever wanted to hear.

He flinched, almost banging his head against the wall and a voice spoke up next to him.

“Thought it was just around being people but that’s not it, is it?”

Max whipped his head over to look and Toast was staring at the altar.

She flicked her gaze up and Max looked away.

“Nnph,” he agreed, shrugging. “You, ah, you…”

“I know, I know. Probably should be practicing more, aiming, self defense. Or working out where everyone’s going to hole up, during the siege, how to make sure there’s enough supplies. Enough food, aqua-cola, bullets.” Toast jaw worked.

Max shook his head. He’d been trying to figure out what she knew of his… oddness. The Organic was hovering around her now and his eyebrow twitched with the effort to not reach over and try to brush him away from her. “Don’t havta do all that yourself.”

“Don’t I?” She nodded over at the edge of the altar room. “They seem to be too busy handling those boys of Lance’s.” 

Max could see Austeyr and Kompass over there, talking with war boys, both new and old. Bits of conversation drifted to them:

“Just come to have a listen.”

"Got stuck with taking the pups here."

"I was bored."

“Don't care about being told stories like pups.”

“We’re having dinner being passed around during, you don’t want to miss that, do you?”

“Well…”

“Bean cakes and some extra greens they’re all concerned about going off.”

“Greens? For _war boys_? That’s how they do it now?”

“Yeah the Tribunes say they have too much in the stores. Joe normally just let it go bad and then threw it away, but they want it to be eaten.”

“Oh, well, I guess I could stay for some of that.”

Max turned to Toast and murmured, “Should stay and show our support.”

Toast sat down next Max, jiggling her cargo pockets to settle the contents. “Yeah, give the women some numbers.” She nodded as if to convince herself.

The war boys lingered around the walls and the doors, unwilling to go closer towards the center where the women and pups clustered.

Many stepped up towards the altar into a golden beam of lamplight and cleared her throat, “I know it’s not Tenday, but we thought that Tendays should be used for Remembrance only, for Death. When it’s not Tenday, let our stories be for Life.” She paused, screwed up her face a little, “well there may be some death in there too but y’can’t really get around that can you?”

“ ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit…'"

“What’s a ‘hobbit’?” One of the war boys in the back scoffed.

“Well just listen and find out.”

"'Not a dry, bare sandy hole, but something nicely hacked out into the rock, cool in the day and warm in the nighttime, with even a trickle of water in the back. It was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort—’ ”

She told them about a History Man in grey robes, and Dwarves, and people eating the Hobbit's food - to murmurs of 'those schlangers! - and about a long journey. When Many’s voice got tired, another of the women stepped up and continued, and by that time a few war boys had tentatively stepped closer and sat down.

“ _Where did you go to, if I may ask?' said The Imperator to Gandalf the History Man as they rode along._

_To look ahead,' said he._

_And what brought you back in the nick of time?'_

_Looking behind,' said he.”_

Max heard the whispers from the war boys near him:

‘The story’s a strange one.’

‘That Bilbo is so mediocre.’

‘But kinda funny.’

‘What about the dwarves though...’

'She said the Elves rode their bikes better than even Rock Riders..'

Dag, who was sitting with Capable and some of the Vuvalini, was getting stares every time the elves were described.

Max noticed that nobody left and more seemed to crowd in around the doorways. They switched through the speakers as the women got tired, or decided another would tell a part of the story better, and eventually—

“What’s a Dragon?” a pup asked.

“Well!" the storyteller exclaimed with wide eyes. "A Dragon’s a lizard! But it's as big as _three_ war rigs, and it has a flamethrower built in, and a roar like a V12 engine.”

“A Vee-TWELVE?”

"And it _flies_."

The kids gasped.

"When it flaps its wings it sounds like..." she spread her arms and as she moved them her cloth wrap flapped. The shadows around the room were huge, and she made a sound something like a loud swooshing. The pups - and more than a few others - gasped. 

"Chrome!"

They had to take a brief pause as some pups got up to start chasing each other with arms spread.

When the food finally came, both war boys and war pups had to be reminded to eat. And Max discovered the Mechanic was nowhere to be found.

* * *

"Hello," said Corpus said into the gloom, eyes and ears fine to the sound and the feel of motion behind him. He'd always had guards around, but he wouldn't have survived as he had if he didn't also have strategic mirrors, and tells placed around the room. A shiny bit of tin that would move from displaced air, an open flame that wavered when somebody moved, a hollow in the stone to amplify steps. Mirrors visible to anyone, and others smaller and hidden.

A black-robed figure appeared silently next to his chair.

"Come to end me?"

"I did not fight to be able to give you that surgery just to disprove myself about your survival now," Feng said.

“Didn’t seem to much care about my survival either way.” Corpus muttered.

"You think I had options?"

“Doesn't matter, now. You’ve come here, too, to ask where I lean?” The meetings he’d been having with the Fixer and Stuffs, with his gatekeepers and the war boy representatives, they left him feeling a mixture of on-edge and uneasy. It was difficult to admit because the plans were nothing that Corpus hadn’t thought of himself, they were nothing but logical.

“So popular…”

“Does it surprise you?”

"No." she chuckled, a rusty little sound. “Old Joe was always charismatic. Ribs still holding up?”

“You do good work.” His bones had always been brittle, prone to fracture; when his ribs had begun collapsing in on themselves in his early teens he’d had to get surgery to get them braced with metal rods. It hadn't been an option, nobody who could do it, until suddenly there had been somebody, looking at him with sad eyes. It had been the first time he'd met her that he could remember, and she'd disappeared again after, never to be mentioned by his Pa. He hadn't seen her since.

“I know,” she replied modestly. He’d lifted an eyebrow at the disconnect between her words and her tone, still not understanding this woman he’d only known of through his recovery period in the Vault, twelve years ago. Miss Giddy had cared for him, gave him his history, explained who had operated on him and told him some stories with fondness; but also that the current wives weren’t to know of Feng, that he was never to speak of her.

"It's good to have my infirmary back."

“I’ll make sure you keep it.” Corpus promised.

“You say that, do you.” Feng replied with bitterness. “Do you think I can’t keep it _myself_?”

“Just thought you could do with a bit of help—”

“Do you think I need _your_ help, oh son of Immortan Joe?”

He didn’t know quite what to say to not antagonize her further, “It would be in my best interests if you’re well stocked, wouldn’t it?”

Feng settled back onto her heels. “There’s that, I suppose. Is that the terms then, an infirmary for treatment if you come out on top? Are you going to be putting any bounds on what I can control within those walls?” There was something dismissive in her eyes, and he had no doubt she'd had this conversation with the council. Corpus saw that she thought him self-serving, his father's son, and that made him tired, because she was only half-wrong.

But being half-right would be enough to make her feel entirely justified; this woman who was so used to fighting.

“No bounds on what you will control. I know nothing of healing.”

“It’s agreed then.”

“Yeah.”

She nodded curtly and walked out, and Corpus brushed a hand over the thick scar on his chest as he watched her go in his mirrors.

"Thank you, Ma."

He saw her falter slightly. Straighten.

And continue walking away.

* * *

"You know she's gonna end up in the middle of it," Ace said, eying up the Wastelander. He was— well he was meant to be crew now, wasn't he? And it was up to Ace to make that work. He wouldn't be like a warboy falling in with the crew, drilled from pup to follow orders. Ace had no way to tell if the man would follow an order he didn't like. At least one coming from anybody but Furiosa.

This was not the time to test it. So Ace tried to maneuver this careful, "And they will be gunning for her."

"Hmm," Max agreed, shifting uneasily at the thought.

"You're an all right shot with her rifle, ar'ntcha?"

"Mm. Not as good as she is."

Well, few were. The crew'd had no training with long guns, rifles being too sparse for giving to warboys. Ace himself had only had limited training. He was good with his grenade launcher, and they could all shoot pistols, but shooting the SKS at this distance was a different story. He decided that setting the situation up with as much chance of success was better than testing the man on his suitability as crew.

"We'll be her defence squad. Keep some distance, intercept anybody coming for her," Ace decided, eying him. "You stick by her side."

Which was, as far as Ace could tell, where the man wanted to be - no order followed better than an order to do what somebody was already intending to do. Ace was confident it was an order that would be followed. Besides that, it made sense for Furiosa's direct backup to be able to handle her weapon in a pinch. He'd be able to could trade off with her if needed. The siege wouldn't be over in a few hours; even the Boss would see the sense in taking breaks.

Max glanced up at Ace in surprise, apparently trying to see if he was serious.

"Okay," he nodded finally, eyes already skittering away.

"Counting on you to make sure she doesn't run herself into the ground, yeah?" Ace added. Wanting to be very clear that was part of Max's job. _Don't make me regret trusting you with this._

"Yeah. Okay," Max murmured, eyes on the ground.

Ace gave him a narrow look at the easy agreement, this stunted Wasteland feral. Part of the crew maybe, but not a warboy. Did his word mean anything? Was he up to the orders given? Could he focus enough to keep on task? Ace hadn't failed to notice the way he kept flinching at thin air, occasionally seemed to be trying to swipe something away from beside him, as if he were hearing voices, seeing things.

The man finally met his gaze. "Yeah. I'll, um, keep her safe. From—" he gestured around, "and herself."

It was not like the firm response Ace preferred to have from crew, but he supposed it was as much as he would get from this man.

"Good."

* * *

It was almost a relief when the light of the next morning brought dust plumes on the horizon.

"Oh, thank you, gods. I was about to go crazy," Toast announced, "with all this waiting."

You'll learn this is what s like, 'hurry up and wait' " Janey said to the girl, amused.

"What does that even _mean_?" Toast frowned.

"You rush a lot to spend most of your time waiting."

"And the fighting?"

"Oh, well, that bit happens fast."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation of mouth-full speak: "You would do the same. Don't lie."
> 
> The story being references is obviously The Hobbit, which we felt was appropriate given it was about reclaiming a mountain that had a monster inside
> 
> Re: the idea that Joe probably threw a lot of food away: "An estimated 25 – 40% of food grown, processed and transported in the US will never be consumed. " We figured Joe probably preferred composting food rather than feed it to those unworthy'


	28. Plunge Step

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Plunge step: An aggressive step pattern for descending on hard or steep angle snow._
> 
> "I have a shot on the shouty one," Gilly offered, Kukri behind her to reload her rifle. Vicks and Razor were a few levels up. 
> 
> Capable made a strangled noise. 
> 
> "Tempting, but maybe he's going to make demands," Furiosa mused. "I should at least try to talk to him."

When the war party arrived, it was both less and more dramatic than feared. If the intel of hundred to hundred-fifty was correct in the first place, the warparty had apparently cannibalised itself on the way to the Citadel. Ace scratched his nose in thought, picking a bit at the peeling skin.

Judging by the amount of vehicles and the state of them, they had left behind everybody who couldn't keep up. Likely fought viciously amongst themselves for control, figuring that the Imperator in control when they took back the Citadel would be the new Immortan. They'd arrived with less than half the people they were reported to have set out with, and they looked exhausted and dehydrated. There was a lot of shouting, Imperator Noxious bellowing at warboys who didn't exactly seem eager to fight.

"Look like they ain't drank nothin' but their own piss in days," Ace said. Toast, who was to be Janey's backup and reloader, grimaced.

"I have a shot on the shouty one," Gilly offered, Kukri behind her to reload her rifle. Vicks and Razor were a few levels up.

Capable made a strangled noise.

"Tempting, but maybe he's going to make demands," Furiosa mused. "I should at least try to talk to him."

They watched the warboys head in the direction of the tower they were in, carrying ropes and grappling hooks, and Furiosa met Ace's eyes. He pulled his mouth at her but waited for her thoughts.

“We need to take care of this first.” She stated. “Alert the war boys in the tunnels.”

"Crew needs to be at their stations," he nodded pushing himself up from his crouch by the window. “Eyes on!”

There was a chorus of affirmations and the sound of safeties being clicked off.

* * *

Max registered that the incoming grappling hook didn't make the clank of metal on stone the others had made. Instead there was a meaty smack and a sharp gasp. He didn't hesitate, cut the rope before he even looked.

When the Imperator below had started sending Warboys directly to Furiosa's position, Ace had sent him Rachet to assist in holding them off. Most of the warboys's clay had worn off, but right now his face looked pale even underneath the remains of it, his eyes huge and a little panicky as they both looked at the large, ugly metal hook that was deeply embedded in the meat of his upper arm.

" _Fuck_ ," Max cursed, trying to shake off the stiff panic in his limbs. He could do this, he knew how to do this. He _did_.

Guiding Rachet down to sit on a ledge outside of the window's exposure, he noticed the warboy's legs were already unsteady. The wound looked ragged around the rusty metal, not bleeding as much as it could have. Max's hand snapped out to catch Rachet's wrist, preventing the warboy from pulling at the hook.

"Leave it."

"But I need to—"

"Get the boy to the Infirmary," Gilly said, coming over from the next window over with Kukri behind her. They must have redistributed to free her up. She took aim and shot out the window, ducked away again with a satisfied hum at a bullet well spent.

"Who's injured?" Furiosa called from the other side of the room, where she was using a small sniper window to pick off climbers, firing quick and not looking away. Ace was guarding the doorway behind her, where three of Lance's friends had tried to come in earlier under the pretense of an important message from the troops below. Their bodies were still outside the doorway, an unmistakable signal that neither side was pretending to be allies anymore.

"I'm fine, Boss!" Rachet managed, voice less than steady.

She darted her eyes over at his tone and Max saw her eyes widen and her jaw set. Her gaze flicked quickly over those stationed in the room.

"Go.”

"He needs— My post—" Max said, but she shook her head sharply, and he was already nodded in agreement. Rachet needed the infirmary now, and Max the only one who could bring him - the warboy wasn't large, certainly not compared to the others of the crew, but Kukri was the only other person who could be freed up, and not well or strong enough to haul Rachet down the steps. But Kukri could still take over Max’s position, cutting down the grappling hooks.

"Right."

He was halfway down there, Rachet's good arm draped around his shoulder and Max's arm across his back with his fingers curled into his belt, when the Organic Mechanic stepped in front of Max, and he flinched badly.

_Hey bloodbag, bloodbag, bloodbag! You doomed that boy bloodbag, I could'ave saved him, saved his arm even, but now he's gonna die!_

"Wha?!" Rachet grit out, jolted by the sudden stop, and Max made a gesture to shove away the Organic Mechanic with his free arm, momentarily forgetting that the man was not solid.

_All your fault, bloodbag! He's gonna rot slow and soft until the best he can hope for is my mercy in the night, but you ruined that too, din't ya bloodbag?_

He got them back into motion, mumbled a 'sorry'.

"'s okay," Rachet gasped. "Do we have to go? I mean you can pull it out, right? The Boss is right handy with wounds too. Pull out the hook, tie a bandage around it. There's really no need to bother those new mechanics, I bet they'll be annoyed to get such a piddly little injury…"

He kept babbling, voice shaky, as they got closer to the Blood Shed, and Max idly wondered who of them wanted to be here least. The Organic Mechanic was floating an arm's length in front of Max, screaming in his face, but focusing on Rachet's voice helped somewhat. Made it almost - almost - possible to walk past the ledges in the hallway without twitching.

Max hadn't been here, had avoided it at all cost, but from what he could see it had been cleaned and everything, the walls, the ceilings and floors, had been chalked white. It couldn't hide the scent of blood, some of it old, some of it fresh, and he clenched his hand hard around Rachet's belts.

"Will you stay?" Rachet asked under his breath as they approached the cutting room, and he was leaning more heavily on Max now, his knees thinking about buckling, "Crew don't leave each other alone h-here, and you're crew now, aren't you?"

 _Yes bloodbag, won't you stay?_ The Organic Mechanic laughed in his ear. _I'm sure we could find a cage for you somewhere, make you useful._

Max felt sweat soak through his clothes, his skin ice-cold and clammy, his muscles trying to seize up, his entire body screaming to drop the war boy and get out. Rachet’s voice was the only reason he’d kept moving.

He heard voices inside the cutting room, but halted just outside of the doorway, unable to bring himself to move further and Rachet silent but for his pained breathing.

_Haha, bloodbag can't go in! Nothing much left of you now, is there, bloodbag? Never did see any use for you apart from your blood. That must be while Furiosa keeps you around, in case she needs some more. Such a shame I can't take care of her anymore, but at least I get to watch, bloodbag. Isn't that a nice thought?_

"What am I hearing?" came a voice from inside, and then a short, black-robed figure came out of the cutting room, wiping down her arms with a rag. "Oh. Customers."

_Bloodbag! BLOODBAG! LOOK AT ME! HE'S GONNA DIE BLOODBAG AND IT'LL BE YOUR FAULT!_

Rachet had completely frozen, but Max barely noticed between his own panic and the Organic Mechanic screaming directly into his ear.

Feng, with her fine, wrinkled features exposed and her long steelgrey hair in a knot, tsked sharply.

"What are _you_ doing here, boy?' she said, hostile.

She approached, and Max instinctively tried to back up, but Rachet was slumping against him, and he couldn't move without risking dropping the warboy. Feng moved to in front of Max, just slightly to the side, and continued,

"This is _my_ domain, it always was. And you, disgusting defiler of bodies, going against everything I ever taught you, have _no_ place lingering!" 

It finally dawned with Max, through the layers of panic, that she wasn't speaking to him. That the Organic Mechanic had gone silent, watching her.

Feng took another step closer, got right up into the ghosts' face, and hissed through bared teeth, animalistic and far more terrifying than an old woman ought to have been, face somehow suddenly ancient, wild, and cavernous. And the ghost just…

 _faded_.

The silence was so abrupt Max felt his own knees buckle, and steered Rachet to lean against the doorway just in time.

Feng seemed to tower over them in her disapproval, “Who are you to bring things like _that_ , here.”

Max blinked.

“ _Well_?” The old woman looked at him searchingly and then snorted in disgust, “That Furiosa, giving refuge to all these things with fleas that don't even know it.”

"Thanks," he mumbled. She actually stilled for a moment, and some of her hostility seemed to… not fade, but redirect.

“Bah. What would _you_ know about it. Come on then."

Max only stared at her in blank confusion as she then flicked her gaze to the war boy, and then down to the hook. The old woman made a sound of disgust and hauled Rachet up by his other arm and then steered him onwards, towards a ledge.

Max followed as if on a string. Rachet had let out a small panicked sound and stared back at him helplessly and Max hadn't meant to stay, he _hadn't_ , but he couldn't let him think— he had to. Follow.

_"Crew don't leave each other alone here, and you're crew now, aren't you?"_

Max hadn’t let himself be a part of something for a very very long time. For years, and through a very many people requesting that he stay. That he’d help. It had always ended in death. As he forced his frozen knees to bend, to carry him, he wasn't so sure this wouldn't.

Feng yelled for her assistant, for hot water and her tools, and started probing at the wound site. Max found himself standing next to the ledge.

He exchanged gazes with the half-life, Rachet seeming to take some comfort from it, and Max slowly, reluctantly settled in for a wait while the dark-robed woman worked and the Citadel shook with fighting around them.

Death was already here, staying wouldn’t change things.

* * *

Attempts to enter the Citadel had been going on for hours, but at present there seemed to be a lull in the activity. Imperator Noxious on the ground had taken to using the breaks in the fighting to start yelling insults and demands up at Imperator Furiosa, posted at the skull mouth, who’d returned his insults and demanded their weapons be relinquished or be driven back to the wastes. Corpus could see movement from the war parties, just out of the sightlines of the skull, could see war boys maneuvering around.

“Well, Corpus? You can count the numbers just as well as I can, Lance’s men are guarding the key ground entrances and letting the war parties in. Somebody is already on the way to shoot Furiosa. It should be over soon now.” The Fixer turned the mechanical chair holding Immortan Joe’s son. “Do you have your speech ready? Are your men in place?”

“They have been,” Corpus said steadily, eyeing the thin man, flicking his eyes to where his claw-like hands were gripping his armrest. “And I don’t need to ready a speech.”

“Ah yes, your father always was quick with his words.” The Fixer said carelessly, “And your mother’s quite bright, isn’t she? Only right that their child step up to lead this place.”

Corpus held his tongue at that word choice. His body placed him in no position to do any stepping. He wondered at if Fixer expected himself to ‘step’ for him.

“And speaking of your mother, you’ve found out where her fighters are to be stationed?”

“Yeah,” Corpus trailed off, as he watched the trickle of war boys secretly filtering into the Citadel while the Imperators were still shouting their terms. It would only be a matter of time.

Furiosa’s voice on the intercom faltered, and cut off with a squeal of feedback.

“Well?” Fixer pressed, leaning in further, “Are you having second thoughts? You know this is the only way to maintain power, to secure our position. No one else would be able to hold the Citadel together so easily as you, you knowing what you do and your father having been who he was. You must challenge her quick, while she’s weak, while everyone’s watching. You and Stuffs.”

The son of Imperator Prime was standing slightly to the side and Corpus flicked his gaze over to meet Stuffs’ eyes.

Corpus knew the logic behind this, they being sons of the men previously in power, Corpus with the knowledge and Stuffs with control of the Citadel’s wealth, Corpus with a gun and Stuffs helping move him. ‘ _The new leader of the Citadel and his new Imperator Prime ushering in a new age where your worth wasn’t based on your ability to make War but on your ability to Contribute.’_ So said the Fixer.

But there was something flawed in all that, even if Corpus felt he could see it only dimly.

When he’d spoken to Stuffs after Fixer had left them that first meeting, Stuffs mentioned some of the words that the newly-named Tribunes have spoken at him. Strange words, dismantling the concept of ‘worth’ as a whole. That a person has worth for simply having survived.

Corpus took an uneasy breath. He remembered how, when the Tribunes had still been known as Wives, how they looked at him as if for help. How he looked away even though he knew such as the Soundless existed, how he held his tongue when Pa grew rough, how everything he did was so that his Pa might…. Might find him not such a waste of resources.

(how he’d done everything to survive)

“Don’t you want power, Corpus?”

Corpus pushed a hidden lever that spun the chair quickly, out of the Fixer’s grasp, and turned it to look at Stuffs. “Don’t we all want power?” Corpus asked with a rhetorical tone. The Imperator’s son looked back at him, eyes wide.

Power was safety, was ownership, was the ability to have a place where you sleep at night and can be assured that you’ll wake up the morning after. And Furiosa’s people seem to be getting overrun by the war party...

But all these past many days, all that Furiosa’s crew had been doing was running around _talking_ to people. Being merciful like they were strong enough to give that luxury. Giving the breeders locked doors, the injured war boys treatment and better spaces, bringing the Wretched in to be sheltered. He’d watched them watch Lance’s men, and no move was made other than having the war boys be pulled into conversations with one person or another, or pulled into storycircles with the pups. Corpus himself had initially set himself on the milking room hoping to secure advantage, but they’d left him alone in the days afterward. He would have thought himself forgotten except his men were being watched closely as well.

They were waiting to see if he would help or hinder, maybe. Or maybe just waiting for a good moment to attack. Get him out of the way.

Except he’d started wondering if he’d needed the advantage in the first place. Stuffs had quietly told him, when they were alone, how some milking mothers watched his place so that he could step away and finally start exploring. How he’d drifted by the altar for the first time and heard some stories that a breeder was telling there. How, when he’d went back to his post, they’d returned his space easily and spent some time chatting to him a bit about food distribution and spoilage.

 _I’d never felt so free,_ Stuffs had said. _I’d never felt so in control._

"You have to stand up for yourself and your legacy," Fixer said behind Corpus.

“Corpus,” Stuffs said slowly, “I’ll follow you.”

And Corpus quietly got out the hidden little gun from near his armrest, and nodded slowly.

“See, it’s like that,” Fixer said from even closer, right behind his chair, “people willing to follow you. I’m offering more power than the Immortan ever let you control, all of the Citadel at your command, and of course we’ll keep safe everyone you value.”

When Corpus turned his chair again, he was pointing the gun at Fixer, “I don’t think I want your power; you plan on controlling me with it. I think what you want from me will have everyone coming for my head.”

The Fixer backed up but found his arm engulfed in Stuffs’ large grip.

“Those I value? can keep themselves safe, mostly.” Corpus hummed as if in thought, “Except from you. Very few people can keep themselves safe from you.”

The Fixer started struggling wildly but he couldn’t budge against Stuff’s mass.

“Maybe only I can.” The last son of Immortan Joe nodded, “Alright then.”

The recoil of the gun jarred his arm hard, and Corpus found that both his wrist and his shoulder were in agony after. He was going to have to have Ma take a look at it, damn.

“Ugh,” Stuffs grimaced, and dropped the body, the back of its head blown out from the exploding round.

“Better find somebody to take him away.” Corpus grimaced and shifted his sore shoulder against his chair.

There was a sudden change in the noise outside, and Stuffs cut his eyes to the window, the sound of a shot reverberating against the towers.

Corpus maneuvered the chair back to the opening, placed his eye against one of his many telescopes. Imperator Noxious, who’d been yelling demands and insults into his speaker, suddenly went silent and keeled over, a bloody hole in the middle of his forehead. He watched as the flow of war boys going into the Citadel halted… and then reversed, white painted war boys spilling back out, pushed by figures colored grey. His men, the winch men and brake men and Gatekeepers of the Citadel, being driven out of their corners by large plush milker bodies and by emaciated forms he’d recognized as Mill Rats, and tossed from the ledges.

He felt a pang of unease at letting his men fall without lifting a finger. Then again, from the way they'd been talking about the travesty of being denied access to the breeders, he didn't think there was any way they would ever have gotten behind the new regime.

There was a lone figure at the ground entrance, and he seemed to be converged on from every side.

“Think you chose right,” Stuffs said, coming up to join him, “Though your guards seem to be getting off’d.”

“Some of them were yours too, weren’t they.”

“Yeah.”

“Ever wonder sometimes what they were guarding?”

“They were there to protect us.” Stuffs said.

“From what though?” Corpus knew they were also the ones who’d brought Stuffs supplies from other places. The ones who pressed food onto him. The ones who’d kept Stuffs from moving from his post.

“People who try to take our things.”

“That ever actually happen?”

Being who they were, the only one who could honestly take anything away from them had been perhaps the Fixer. And his Pa. And the Gatekeepers were no help there.

"I think they were mostly there to protect Pa's interests."

“You think they stuck me there on _purpose_?” Stuffs said, shocked.

“I think we never had as much pull as they made us think we did.”

“...and now?”

“Now…” Corpus turned towards Stuffs finally, “Now we wait, for a chance to talk to those Tribunes.” He didn't know if Furiosa was still alive, but even if she weren't, the Tribunes would still be in charge.

“They seem to like talking, though I don’t think they think much of you.” Stuff scrunched up his face and glanced at the mess on the floor. “Think they’ll like us having the Fixer dead?”

“Couldn’t hurt.” Corpus replied. Maybe it would even make up - a little - for his men re-injuring Furiosa?

He sighed, heart beating hard and a little irregular with the tension. They were going to have to wait and see what the new regime would do with them.

“People of the New Citadel!” Furiosa’s voice cut in again, “Here is Tribune Capable to speak to you."

"Warboys," said a new voice, young and, somehow, friendly. "I see that you are thirsty. That you fear for your survival. You shouldn’t have to fear! We will turn on the water today at four-bells, and also two hours before and after the hottest part of the day."

Corpus did a quick mental calculation. Four bells would be soon.

"But _we_ shouldn’t have to fear either, we don’t know if you mean us further harm," the echoing voice continued reasonably. "You may camp at the base, and we will come down to speak. If somebody we trust can vouch for you, you’ll be able to come up and find a position in the New Citadel."

Down by the vehicles, warboys were already looking for vessels to catch the water.

* * *

"Boss, we've got it under control," Ace said.

Furiosa was still positioned at her window, rifle at the ready. The remaining warboys down there were holding whatever vessels they'd found, knowing it would be four-bells very soon.

"Come sit down."

She was hesitant to take her eyes off the war boys at the base. Somehow this had all seemed too easy.

She didn't notice the imploring look Ace threw at Janey, who'd just come in.

Janey wedged herself in at her side. "I'll take over, chick. You look like you need to be sitting a while."

"So do you," Furiosa said with a weak smile.

"I didn't have a knife in my gut ten days ago."

It was hard to argue with that. It all felt like much longer ago, but she was suddenly feeling it, the injuries and the exhaustion.She handed the SKS rifle off to Janey and let Ace help her to a bench. More people had started to come in, Mellie among them, passing around supplies and setting the room a bit to rights before sitting down with a sigh.

Furiosa felt at small metallic touch at her elbow and looked down, a canteen.

“Aqua cola,” Toast said quietly, while Dag was trying to press some squares of clean cloth into Toast’s other hand. Cheedo was helping wipe down rifles to the side.

"Any casualties? Deaths?" Furiosa asked the room in general.

"Some injured, don’t have numbers on it yet," Ace said, sitting down next to her. He looked tired himself, his breathing audible, and she remembered that his cracked ribs had barely begun healing. If she should take it easy, so should he. “Two deaths,” and at Furiosa’s sigh, he added, “both real sick already, got up from the ledges to help the defence.”

She nodded. Maybe she wasn't supposed to think that was a good death, but the boys had clearly wanted to go out helping.

"Rachet— does anybody know?" Max was with him, but anything could have happened since the moment they left for the infirmary, and even if they'd arrived okay, the idea of Max in the infirmary was… "Someone check."

"We'll go," Mellie said, nodding at another woman whose name Furiosa didn't know. "The nursery wasn’t touched, your crew stopped them long before they got anywhere near.”

“Wretched helped, I hear, Milkers too,” Ace added.

“Ahh,” Mellie blushed, “Some of the others maybe… I didn’t help much.”

"Helped keep the pups quiet and calm and safe," Ace said. "Helping's more than just fighting."

“You shouldn’t have to fight,” said Dag.

“And we only fight or kill when there’s no other choice.” Capable insisted. “You have choices now.”

Mellie nodded, and left.

The idea still sat uneasily with Furiosa, and she couldn’t help but think, _Others have a choice, maybe_. She needed to defend, to fight, that’s what she was good at, wasn’t it? If she wasn’t strong for them then what would happen...

Just then Kompass and Austeyr walked in, grey chalked skin instead of white paint and red-brown spatters on their skin. They looked grimly satisfied with themselves.

Furiosa met their eyes. _Handled?_

Kompass nodded, jaw hard. _Handled._ They'd rooted out all the traitors, then.

Capable made a noise of dismay and looked at their blood-stained hands. Held out a damp rag to them, but uneasily, as if she didn't want to get too close.

Austeyr nodded in thanks and wiped his hands, then passed the rag to Kompass. He became aware of the way the red-haired Tribune was still looking at him.

"What?"

"You're— you killed fellow warboys and you look pleased about it," she accused.

"We killed _traitors_ ," Austeyr corrected. "They would have killed all of you if they'd succeeded. Or done worse."

"Are we supposed to regret ending them?" Kompass said, voice dropping low and soft midway through, as if he remembered the last time he raised his voice to the Tribunes.

"Yes— _no_ , but I regret that it was needed," Capable stumbled.

"We spoke to all of them, gave them options," Austeyr shrugged. "They knew what they were throwing in with."

Capable’s jaw set as if she was promising herself to do better in the future, although Furiosa couldn’t figure out how the young woman expected to salvage such a thing as being attacked. But then again, wasn’t that why she’d wanted to step back?

A patchwork Council was forming in the room, apparently those who could pull themselves away to report. They did so slowly, raggedly tired but astonished. Repair bays had some damage, but fixable. The Mess Halls had been upended by Lance’s crew, but the food distro team had moved the food and cooking supplies higher up. Greenhouses remained far from the combat, and intact, The newly named Infirmary busy now that the fighting was over, but otherwise ignored and no one was quite sure if it’s some strange No Man’s Land or sacred ground or if the Soundless simply terrified everyone just that much.

Distantly, somebody rang the big bell on the Green four times.

Britt stepped up to pull the levers, opening the water at a third so as to create a slow stream down the rocks. 

As always, the water sounded like cheers to Furiosa, like song or music or maybe that was just the sense-memory of it.

A young warboy ran in and looked around hesitantly. Recognised Kompass and looked relieved.

"The Blood sh— infirm- infirmary said to tell you.. 'Furiosa's boys are all right.' he quoted with a look of concentration. Kompass thanked him and sent him on his way.

But as Furiosa watched this all happen, feeling more and more quiet and distant, she couldn’t help but think, _This happened too fast_ , _too easily_.

Joe was dead, the Citadel was secured, her crew was around her; her _people_ were around her, vuvalini and sisters and freed women… so why did she feel so shaken loose and stumbling?

"We should all eat," Gale declared. "Bet ya'll haven't in a while."

"We have enough lizards to roast," Cookie spoke up. “And the mess in the mess is easy enough to set to right with enough hands.”

“That’s our cue, I think,” Ace grumbled as he got up and waved at the door. “Well? Food or not?”

Ace really knew how to put a crew to work, Furiosa thought as the room emptied.


	29. Approach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Approach: The nontechnical section of the climb that leads to the technical part of the climb._
> 
> "Mine is faster. Look, bigger legs, right?" 
> 
> "It's not the size that matters."
> 
> Max just about breathed his lizard down the wrong pipe.

Dinner was sorghum mash, with roast lizard for the defenders. A luxury when there were so many to feed. The meal hall was filled with the sound of people who couldn't quite believe the siege was over, an intimidating weight that had loomed over them which had been startlingly broken within the span of a day.Noxious was dead, so was Fixer and Lance's group of rebels. The remaining warboys of the war party were camping by the base of the Citadel. They'd had water, and tomorrow a delegation from the council would go down - well guarded - to speak with them.

The tension of the past week had finally passed. A thing everyone had been pushing against disappearing. The mood was…

Max had his arm curled around his bowl, still not really used to eating near other people. His lizard was already half gone when he noticed Austeyr and Rachet were holding theirs up for inspection.

"Mine. Look, bigger legs, right?" Rachet's shoulder was wrapped up, his face still pale with blood loss. He moved slow, a little loopy with whatever the Soundless had given him.

"It's not the size that matters."  
  
Max just about breathed his lizard down the wrong pipe.

"Mine's smaller, so faster."

"Boss, which one d'you think is faster?" Austeyr appealed to Furiosa.

"Can't find out now, can ya?" Ace answered instead. "They's already dead."

"Mine's not dead, it's just restin'," declared Rachet earnestly, and Max choked a little. "It'll be fine in a bit."

"Look, mine moved," Austeyr wiggled the hind leg of his lizard.

Kompass grabbed Austeyr's wrist and moved it toward him, biting off the head of the lizard before Austeyr could withdraw his hand with an indignant squeak.

"Ach you _wanker!_ You bit the head clean off!"

Max surreptitiously crossed his legs.

Kompass tried to grab the other man's hand for another bite.

" _Boys_ ," Furiosa said under her breath, in a tone that immediately squelched the scuffle.

Max hummed, impressed, and she shot him a glance full of amusement.

"Lizard... racing?"

"Reflex competitions."

“They’re, mmmm...”

He hunched over his food a little, not looking at Furiosa.

“They’re not gonna _dance_ , are they?”

“What, the lizards?”

Austeyr whipped his head over and hissed, “Don't _you_ even _start_.” He huffed. "Don't make the Boss listen to that filth. _Pervert._ " He clapped his hands over Furiosa’s ears.

(One of them may have been still holding a headless lizard.)

(Thankfully it was roasted.)

Max watched as Furiosa’s eyes slid over slow, her face immobile; he felt it like a slow growing rumble in the earth.

There was an explosive movement and suddenly Austeyr was flipped off the bench onto his back, landing with an "oof!" and Furiosa was biting the meat off that lizard with a faintly amused air.

"You ate my lizard!" Austeyr said from the ground, tone somewhere half between indignation and laughter.

"And it was _delicious_."

Kompass and Rachet just about suffocated covering up their snorts, and as Furiosa turned to give them an eyebrow, Max saw that oil from the cooked meat was smeared on the side of her jaw, just under her ear.

Max hummed, uncertainly, “Ah you have…” he gestured.

Furiosa turned to look at him.

He tried gesturing more clearly but she just kept _looking_ at him, and he glanced at his hands, and they were dirt-covered where they weren't oil-covered, and wouldn't help at all if he tried wiping it off for her. _Um._

Max looked at the war boys for help but Kompass had gone off for more lizard and Rachet was yelling at him to choose good ones and Austeyr was just watching him pointedly and was no help at all. The Ace was sitting there, eyes narrowed, and Max decided to ignore that because not much he did seemed to change that expression.

“What?” Furiosa prodded.

He gave up and leaned close and paused long enough for her to shove him away but she just kept staring in curiosity. So Max licked the oil off, a smear right under her ear, the taste of roast oil and skin and a bit of grease and the sound of Furiosa breathing, sharply, in.

Max hurriedly leaned back. _Um_.

She was very still for the space of a few seconds, eyes dark, then blinked and reached for her cup. She cleared her throat, mouth pressed against it and look a long drink, eyes staring determinedly away.

“There was. Oil.” He said a bit helplessly.

He tore his gaze away and turned back to the remains of his meal but. It was gone. Max looked up and the tail was disappearing into Austeyr’s mouth, who was giving him a thumbs up. “Waff geffin’ colff,” Austeyr said around his mouthful, “Y’seemef busy.”

Ace was still looking at him. Mouth slanted. Shook his head a little, as if he could not believe Max just let that happen.

Kompass was handing one of the lizards off to Rachet and frowned when he turned back to the table. “Did you just steal off the Wastelander's plate?”

"Max. His name is Max," Austeyr said, still chewing.

Kompass huffed “And your name is _boofhead_ , half his blood is swimming around in the Boss, he needs to refuel.”

He slid a new lizard onto Max's plate. “There, that’s a nice one for ya, large and meaty.”

Austeyr just looked appalled when Max found himself blushing.

Furiosa made a tiny choking sound.

“What?”

Max just covered his face, keeping one hand on his new lizard, eyes closed.

There was a light tug on it that only made him tighten his grip.

* * *

Max woke to the sound of muffled moaning coming from the... tangle of bodies surrounding him. He wasn't on the ledge, he'd crashed next to Furiosa on on the mattress, and they were surrounded by warboys. And she was moaning.

It wasn’t a _pained_ moan, as such, and he blinked up at the ceiling for a long moment, trying to find the context where this made sense. They'd all spent days running around the Citadel as the tension mounted, trying to be where they were needed; Max and Ace had traded off sticking with Furiosa, trying to stop her from overdoing it, with limited success, especially since Max had to leave her side partway through the siege to aid Rachet. When the siege was finally over and the guard rotation was set, the six of them had had a surreal meal - _surely_ some of his memories could not be correct - and then crashed hard in Furiosa's quarters.

This was the morning after.

“Come on, harder,” he heard Furiosa’s voice next to him, low and breathless. “‘m not gonna break”

Max closed his eyes against the sudden mental images and the brief taste of Furiosa’s skin on his tongue.

“Your ribs might, Boss,” he heard Austeyr say. “Miss Gale would murder me if I hurt you.”

There was a shifting and a muffled, disgruntled moan, and Max risked a look. Furiosa was stretched out on her front, the warboy sitting astride her thighs, kneading her bared upper back.

 _Right,_ it was nothing like he’d imagined. But—

Max looked away, not quite sure this was something he was meant to see. There was something oddly vulnerable about seeing the pale line of her spine under Austeyr's large hands. Then he heard her sigh, and glanced over again.

“Hell, that'd be a kindness,” Austeyr continued, even over Furiosa’s grumbles, “I don't even wanna think about what the Soundless'd do to me if I broke something preventable.”

“...or I,” Ace supplied sleepily from where he lay with his back to the pair. Furiosa swatted at him half-heartedly with her nub, and Ace’s hand came up to keep it pressed against his shoulder.

“An’ I,” Max grunted in agreement. Austeyr shot him a grin.

"See? Gotta keep you in one piece," he said to Furiosa. "Or I'll get chased into the wasteland by an angry mob."

Furiosa huffed at being overruled, subsiding under Austeyr’s hands.

Max hid his grin against his arm, though he wasn't quite sure how to feel.

* * *

"Ace."

Furiosa sounded so serious, Ace came to attention immediately. Breakfast was winding down but Furiosa had waved everyone back to sitting as she was walking back to the crew’s table after talking with the Tribunes.

She was holding something, raising her voice so that it carried to all in the mess hall, the other voices quieting as she spoke.

"Ace, you’ve done well these past many days, and during the battle. I talked to the council; we’ve decided you deserve this."

She brought up her hand, and he stared at the belt hanger ornament she was offering him. It was a leather backplate and chains, the skull symbol pried off just like she'd been wearing it these past weeks. A murmur grew in the tables around them.

"The Tribunes have commissioned a new symbol, for when the artisans have time to craft. But for now—"

He finally, gingerly, took it from her when her words drifted quiet. On anyone else they would have sounded uncertain.

"Congratulations, Imperator Ace."

“IMPERATOR ACE!” The shout arose from Austeyr and Kompass and Rachet first, and was taken up until it echoed and brightened the room. He could hear Treb and Timpani drum on the tables.

The leather was worn, the chains somehow familiar. He didn't know what to think. He ran his fingers over it and then looked into her face. It felt quiet in the eye of the shouting and celebrations around them.

"Boss, this is _yours_."

That wasn't right, that wasn't right at all. Was she— was she being demoted? No, the Tribunes wouldn't do that, not after she'd practically handed them the Citadel on a platter. Several days ago he might have thought they were simply caring for the Citadel in her absence, until she healed, but Ace saw the way Furiosa constantly stepped back from decisions and from giving input even when she was able to sit in on Council, acting as if she was the Tribunes’ second instead of they being hers. She’d relinquished the right to rule that she’d received from defeating Joe…

 _Was she stepping down even further?_ His eyes grew wide.

"I'll get a new one."

Ace let out a breath. _Right._ They'd always had more than one Imperator, and right now there would be a lot of warboys without a crew. In a situation like this, even a half-life as Imperator might be better than only having one.

"Makin' Kompass your new Ace?"

She nodded, giving him a small grin.

"Boy's gonna shit colours."

Her grin grew wide, and the enormity of this began to sink in. _Imperator_. He'd have to find his own crew. Inspire them like she had inspired him.

"I'll make you proud."

She reached up to pull his head down, lightly butting her forehead against his.

"Always have," she said softly, just for his ears. 

The cheers grew louder, encroaching in their little circle, and Ace looked around as the world rushed back in. He began to be passed through the crowd so that everyone who’d wanted to could put in a word - hands patting him on the back, shoulders, in congratulations - though none of them mattered so much as the touch of approval he’d felt on his forehead.

* * *

“Look! She made a war boy—”

“But it’s one of _hers_.”

“Doesn’t matter! It’s not that full-life feral that’s been trailing around her, that’s what I’m sayin’, but a _war boy_. One of us, even, _half_ -life, everyone’s seen his tumors—”

“Why d’ya think she’d trust the Citadel to someone who’s gonna die on her?”

“...they did tell us to take off the paint. Said it made us die quicker.” A voice spoke up slowly from the back.

“Think they know something we don’t? That Joe didn’t?”

“Whatever! What I’m _sayin’_ , if ya’ll would just _stop interrupting me_ , is that she picked someone who knows the Citadel, who knows _us_ , and you _know_ how the Council favors that feral. Trusted him with that run to the canyons, has free reign over all the towers? But fair rabid and don’t think he quite knows how to even find his way to aqua-cola.”

“Aint that right. Seen him get turned around in the tunnels and stare off into space muttering when he thinks no one’s around.”

“Ace will speak for us. Appointing him means she just gave warboys more influence, not less."

"Yeah, and he's gonna need a crew."

"You wanna try to…?"

"If a warboy dies unwitnessed, is he still dead? Don't imagine there could be a better Imperator than the Ace. He's a chrome leader."

"True."

"And if you wait, they might decide to make you a greenthumb instead." A tongue clicked impatiently, “I’m not waiting on you two, going to ask him right now. Join me if y’want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to [ulsae1995](http://ulsae1995.tumblr.com) whose [Imperator](http://ulsae1995.tumblr.com/post/132730933560/60-minutes-imperator-ace-its-me-the-only-one) [Ace](http://ulsae1995.tumblr.com/post/132205524425/90-minutes-imperator-ace-doodle-please-draw-me) artwork made me go all "Pleeeaaase can we?" at Bonehandledknife.


	30. Gym Rat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Gym rat: One of many terms for persons who, with swagger, assert they know climbing because they climb in rock gyms. When rock and mountain climbing, they often become frightened because they are nubs (aspiring newbies) regarding anchors and protection._
> 
> “We should tell the Tribunes!”
> 
> “Tell them what?”
> 
> Mellie jumped a little and then whipped around to point at Kaybar’s nose, “Pants.”
> 
> “Why do the Tribunes need to know about pants, I thought they already wore some?”

Kaybar woke up, kinda groggy and dry-mouthed. That was weird, he’d had battle highs before but none that ended up with dreams of a filthy-mouthed Farmer Boy doing such _filthy_ things.

A hand groped his asscheek, and a familiar sleepy voice declared, “Mmm, now you’re symmetrical.”

He blinked slowly, _ooookay? Not a dream apparently?_

When Kaybar looked down his body it was streaks and swirls of grey mixed with yellow. It looked almost… kinda neat. _Huh._ He twisted to try to look at his back but he couldn’t get a good angle. Maybe if he fetched some aqua-cola to get a good reflection going on, or use one of the mirrors on a rig.

He looked up at… whatshisface. Scythe? The Farmer Boy he'd first met in the canyon, the one with the wicked grin. His yellow paint was streaked with grey-white handprints. It looked pretty cool too.

“You have a mirror on you by any chance?”

“No? Why do you—”

“Do you have any idea how chrome we look right now?” Kaybar thrilled.

“Uh.” Scythe looked down at himself. Looked back at Kaybar, and his mouth twisted wide, “Well you’re rocking the afterglow.”

“I think you mean I’m rocking the _art_.” Kaybar leapt off the sleeping ledge, “Come on, I want to see my ass from a good reflection. It’s probably _epic_.”

Scythe barely had time to eyeroll and grab his pants before he was tugged off the ledge, still yawning.

 ****  


* * *

"Kaybar, are those.. yellow handprints on your ass?"

"You should see the other guy!"

"What?"

Kaybar gestured to the Farmer Boy who was, somewhat reluctantly, following him, still hopping into a pair of pants. He was also adorned with handprints. 

“Kaybar for all that is chrome, put on some pants,” Toolbox shouted when they arrived in the garages.

“My art needs to be seen to be appreciated."

“Is that what you're calling your gearstick now? You never had a problem with pants before—”

“DON’T ARTSHAME ME.” Kaybar roared before he went back to preening before a mirror.

A Farmer Boy (with similar streaks) had his face in his hands, standing off to the side.

Mellie turned to Britt, who she’d pulled over to follow the boys to the garage, “You see?”

"More than I care to." She was holding up a hand to shield her eyes.

“That too, but I mean the paint!” Mellie said excitedly, “We can pattern the different clay shades; the pups, they need sun protection right? And the paint makes them feel grown?”

“We can let them paint instead of scarring each other up,” Britt murmured slowly lowering her hand to cup thoughtfully around her mouth.

“Maybe even... well, we all have our family lines woven into our hair? We can draw their family lines on those pups we recognize, teach them what it means!”

“It’ll give them an identity, instead of taking it away,” Britt agreed. "And we could wear it ourselves, if we want to go into the sun."

“We should tell the Tribunes!”

“Tell them what?”

Mellie jumped a little and then whipped around to point at Kaybar’s nose, “Pants.”

“Why do the Tribunes need to know about pants, I thought they already wore some?”

“Pants for _you_.”

His face went scrunched. "I have to?"

Britt rolled her eyes and unwound an extra bit of cloth she’d been using to keep dust from her hair, “At least kilt up.” She tossed the cloth at him. "The Council is likely to want to shoot schlangers on sight."

The Farmer Boy had caught up, belting on his pants, and tossed an extra belt at the war boy. “This should help.”

Kaybar was already winding the cloth around, if a bit sullenly, fixing it in place with the belt and protested to the other man, “Can I at least leave my ass uncovered, I mean look at this! It’s shiny!”

“Yes yes, very nice,” the farmer boy rolled his eyes, “Why are you even asking _me_? Do as they say.”

“Coma Doof never got this much grief,” Kaybar said tragically, tucking his ‘art’ away.

“People _asked_ for his,” the farmer boy snorted, “We’d heard stories of his thrashing even in Bullet Farm.”

“So do you think if I refined—”

“No.”

“But—!”

“ _No_.”

Mellie and Britt were already walking toward the Council rooms but she heard, distantly, ‘I care about your, uh, art, but _they don’t_ , so you might as well save it for those who wants it.’

She was not at all surprised to see that their paint had further rearranged, once they’d finally arrived in the Council room. She hid a smile.

 ****  


* * *

Max wandered around aimlessly after breakfast, unsure what to do with himself after the announcement of Ace's promotion. Unsure of what to do with himself even _during_ , the celebration seemed excessive to his eye for a simple promotion and there were undercurrents he couldn’t read. It seemed blindingly obvious to Max that Ace was already effectively an Imperator and that the promotion was only making it official. The overly excitable reaction of the warboys made him suddenly feel out of place again, reminding him of how alien they were. 

Furiosa had gone back to her quarters after tearing herself away from the cheering mass of war boys, guiding the still-healing Rachet with her to get some more rest. The others were busy organising, Ace in the middle of several who wanted to be on his crew. Kompass and Austeyr were talking to the Tribunes about going down to ground level later today to speak to the warboys camping there.

Yesterday, Max had fit among them, had found a place where he could be useful, and it had seemed easy. Today all of that seemed to be gone again.

Maybe it was simply staying in one location for so long, and a place that was all walls and tunnels instead of open sky?

(Maybe it’s the persistent feeling that it was all too easy. Too simple. Too safe.)

He eventually washed up toward the council rooms, where some people were sitting around chatting, the session apparently having ended some time ago. Most of the Council had dispersed except for the Tribunes, two milkers, some Vuvalini, and oddly, one war boy.

Max’s confusion cleared up as he listened, they were apparently debriefing the young man who’d been requested by Cheedo to spy on the traitors. He frowned a little, not quite expecting young Cheedo to take up that task but it’d seemed to be something she walked into herself. Cheedo saw him, ducked into the shadow of the hallway, and waved for him to join them, holding up a cup of water in offer. He gingerly sat down on the edge of the circle, not quite feeling like he was supposed to be here, either. Especially when the conversation picked back up.

"...and I swear, the way they were _looking_ at each other!"

"Like looks could kill?"

"That's pretty much true for Feng, isn't it?"

"Not the way she was looking at Miss Giddy!"

“If she’d walked any faster towards that car, it would’ve been a run.”

“Doesn’t the Soundless always move quickly though?” Oti, the warboy, asked. He was one of the few that Max could quickly identify, the gossip flying in from all angles.

“You don’t get it she…she looked like—” there was some flailing. "Like she couldn't decide if she wanted to kill her or kiss her.”

"And since Miss Giddy is still ~alive~…" Dag sing-songed.

“Are you implying—!” some scandalized gasps circled the group.

“Just stating the facts that we’ve all seen, is all.”

“Those are some facts,” Toast muttered.

“What, like you wouldn’t take those same facts if it were two war boys and come to the same conclusions!”

"That's different! I want to keep an eye on that because I don't know how freely they choose." Gilly said intently, “It’s important that they know they have a choice, especially if there’s a power imbalance.”

“Also how would two breeders even _work_ ,” Oti muttered, “who would even— and I mean they're _old_ —”

“Stop right there.” Janey said with exasperation.

“But—!”

“We’ll talk later.”

Oti seemed unable to decide whether to look intrigued or intimidated.

“And even if those gals might cause the rest of us grief in a lover’s spat.” Gilly continued, "At least we don't have to worry about _them_ doing things they don't want to."

"You're worried about those two warboys this morning, with the paint?"

"Maybe? That Farmer Boy looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but here."

"Gave Kaybar his belt though," Oti pointed out, like that should say more than it did.

"So? He had more than one."

"Belts are shine. The more belts the better. You don't just give one to somebody you don't like," he shrugged, voice dropping low and soft as if the fact that a warboy might like somebody was embarrassing.

"...Furiosa has a lot of belts," Cheedo mused with a gleam in her eye.

The women contemplated this. Visibly thought about the way her crew shaped and furled around her.

"The way those boys look at her, it's a miracle she isn't covered from armpit to ankle," Gale said finally.

Toast grinned. "Maybe she has a stash somewhere."

“She sometimes switches them out from what I could see,” Oti mentioned cautiously.

Max had in fact seen her unlock a storage chest and chose from several belts. There was one she'd contemplated and put back, a belt scraped up and stained with a darkness that was probably old blood. A memento to a specific warboy?

“I’ve been meaning to ask about that,” Vicks broke in, “What’s with our girl and her harem?"

For some reason everybody was suddenly looking at Max, and he cringed. He suspected Furiosa and her crew had always been closed-lipped, protective of what they had and very aware of the vulnerability of it. Even if what they had was nothing more than the little he'd seen... the Citadel, let alone the Wasteland itself, had no tolerance for the kind of care and rough affection he'd seen between the crew. It was something so rare, so fragile in the moral wasteland Joe had created, that the idea of betraying the confidence was unthinkable.

Then they kept looking at him, he grunted. "Not, hmm, not for me to, uh, to speak of."

"Don't pressure Max, if it's private then it's private." Capable said in support.

"Speaking of private, we should probably institute some decency guidelines.” Toast grimaced, “Some of the warboys could do with a few more inhibitions."

"Agreed, I don't want people to be feelin' menaced by schlangers."

“Yeah, Kaybar’s a bit…too relaxed.”

“I like the… the paint?” Cheedo says politely, “But...”

"But naked schlangers should be shot on sight." The Dag muttered.

The Vuvalini exchanged glances and wry looks, “Can’t say you’re entirely wrong.”

Max remembered Kaybar, and thought a few more inhibitions probably wouldn't hurt.

* * *

Max wandered around after the partial-Council dispersed to the Mess hall or their rooms, still feeling odd in his skin and out of sorts. His mind kept turning over the implications of all of Furiosa’s belts and the ease of the crew as they moved around her. He kept having the mental double-vision of how the crew acted in public versus while in her room, and the prickliness to which they guarded their personal space among non-crew members.

And how they had none with him. How she'd never had, with him.

He kept flashing back to the way he and Furiosa moved around each other, mostly careless and far too easily. How Austeyr stole his food with nary a sense of internal alarm, and how Max inexplicitly hadn't felt the urge to stab him for it. To how Kompass had been able to surprise him with a head conk, how he stayed with Rachet in the infirmary, despite still not being sure how he'd stopped himself from running back out. Managed to fall asleep now, around them and Ace.

He’d— Max realized suddenly— he hadn’t had a nightmare. Or.

There was the vague memory of waking up startled, but warm, and having fingers stroke his head until he’d dropped back down into non-awareness.

(and it felt _dangerous_ )

“Hey, Wastelander.”

Max focused his eyes on the group of women in front of him. He looked around uneasily, trying to place where he’d wandered to, but he wasn't quite sure. Was he somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be? He knew that the Council had wanted to maintain safe spaces for the women because the situation was still all rather new and tenuous.

The speaker was proud looking, stocky, and held herself like that one Aunt Entity he’d met. Or at least, she looked vaguely familiar, but he did not think he'd met her before. “Wastelander, I know you have the ear of the Council and we need to know if you’d help us in this.”

Max hummed in confusion, but gestured for her to continue.

“There are a couple of war boys that have still been pushy and loud. Some of the women are scared.”

“Which ones?” Max asked, before she could continue, eyes flickering around them. They didn’t just finish fighting so that they’d have to fight again, internally. He felt his shoulders crawl up around his ears and his weight move forward to be light on his feet.

“Not…” She eyed him, “They’re not an immediate threat, we don’t think. But…”

“But they could be.” Max knew that he couldn’t take on a mass of war boys, multiple escape attempts attested to that. But maybe… Maybe if he brought it up to Ace, he wouldn’t have to? “Give me names.”

“Just like that?” The woman’s shoulders twitchily settled, and Max found his shoulders settling in response as well.

“So you don’t have names?” Max’s forehead furrowed.

“...I have names but,” she looked unbalanced, like a fight she’d been preparing for was suddenly resolved. She seemed to shake herself and then started listing names and the women who were being bothered and Max pulled out a bit of fabric to scritch in notations to remind himself. She’d blinked at him a bit when he’d first pulled it out and wet the needle but then shook herself again and continued.

She paused over one name. “Ah…”

Max hummed at her encouragingly.

“I don’t know how you’d take to me saying this. It isn’t even… he doesn’t approach me. Not since Tend— Just stares, sometimes.” She looked away and shivered, “And he looks angry about it. It just. It makes me nervous.”

“Can make sure he stops,” Max suggested, “Doesn’t approach you or stare.”

“...even if he’s one of Furiosa’s crew?” the woman challenged.

Max made a startled sound.

“It’s Kompass. Would that change things?” She said, letting out the words like like firing a weapon, “Tell him to stop staring at me. At ‘Polaris’, if you need a name.”

Max studied the notes he’d been making and thought about war boys, about progress and backsliding, about that war boy Nux and the way he’d met him, strung up and being bled dry. He thought about holding guns on the girls, and shooting one of them on the leg, even if accidentally.

“I’ll make sure both him and Ace knows,” Max finally said, looking up at her.

She looked back at him, surprised and wary. “I’ll hold you to that.”

* * *

"...there’s this last one."

"Yeah?" Ace muttered tiredly. Kompass grunted from where he’d been scanning the Pits, looking thoughtful and annoyed, muttering about this or that war boy that they’d have to see to. Apparently many of the problem ones were in the group that Max brought back, even though a couple were from those originally at the Citadel, injured. Something about ‘Lance’s crew’, whatever that meant.

"Could be either easy or hard.” Max picked at the scab he’d use for ink and hummed, trying to gauge how they might react.

“How so?” Kompass turned around.

“Know a Polaris?”

They looked at each other with a clear question in their eyes, but looked equally confused, and stared back at Max. “Don’t know a War boy by that name.”

“No, I mean. One of the women… mmm, you call them breeders.“

“Yeah?”

“Asks that Kompass stop staring at her.”

"Kompass?" Ace said in surprise, looking at the other warboy, eyes narrowing.

“What?! I’ve never… I wouldn’t...” the war boy glanced between them, then paused suddenly, looking struck, “...wait. Can you describe her?”

"About your height, darkhaired," Max gestured at Kompass, "wide shoulders? Can’t place her accent."

“Polaris…” Something strange flickered across Kompass’ face. “ ‘course that’s her name.” He turned and leaned against a wall, crossing his arms.

“You know her?”

“Not really,” he shook his head, eyes flickering around. “Wanted to though. She’s… scared of me?”

“Seems like. Says you look angry,” Max shrugged, with the awkward knowledge that angry seems to be the war boy’s resting face, “Wants you to stay away.”

“Ah.” The warboy hunched his shoulders, eyes on the far rock wall.

“Kompass…” Ace said warningly.

“...okay.”

“You can’t just—” Ace sounded frustrated and disappointed.

“I said _okay_!” Kompass shouted, then caught himself.

Max and Ace stared at him.

The war boy palmed his face and sighed in resignation. “I said okay,” he repeated, softer. “And I’ll work on. On.” He waved his hand at his face.

“Yeah?”

“If she’s. If she’s scared it doesn't matter what I want.” Kompass glanced back down at the Pits. “She, I mean she doesn’t know me from any other war boy, right?”

“Do you… why were you staring?” Ace asked. "That's not like you."

The war boy just clutched his wrist, nails scoring his scars, and chuckled weakly, “No good reason, I guess. Stupid, probably. I’ll stay away.”

There was a long and careful moment where they all tried to breathe and process. Ace staring at Kompass with a terrible twist to his mouth.

Kompass suddenly looked up at Max. “You can approach her. Right?”

Max nodded warily.

“Tell her,” he swallowed, his lips moving to silently sound out a few words, and nodded firmly, “ _Ek is jammer_. Tell her I won’t come near again.”

Max raised an eyebrow at him and tried repeating it. “What does it mean?”

Kompass looked away, disquieted, “She'll know. Nothing rude.” He pushed away from the wall he'd been leaning against and walked away, nothing of his usual confident swagger. “Heading towards the Pits," he called back, "beating some heads in what needs beating.”

Max and Ace exchanged a look.

* * *

Max wasn’t sure what to make of the reaction that Polaris had to his message when he found her at the Mess hall during evening meal. She’d went very still and demanded that he’d repeat it again, three times, and then sat back, looking shocked.

“He said it wasn’t rude,” Max tries, brow furrowing.

“It’s not rude,” she said, waving that off and staring off in the middle distance, “But. But how does he know even how to—” she broke off and looked at him, “He asked about my mother."

Max made a questioning sound.

Polaris waved him off too, “He said he won’t come near but he said nothing about me approaching _him_ , right?”

Max shrugged, it shouldn’t be a factor he thinks, if the women approach first.

She nodded and pushed herself up from the table, and walked back to the table where Furiosa’s crew held court. Max trailed after her at a distance, feeling awkward but wanting to be nearby to support if it should be needed.

Kompass blanched when he saw her approach, and resolutely kept his eyes on his food, even when she started talking, words, but nothing understandable. But at one point his head darted up and he finally looked at her, spoon dropping into his bowl.

The others at the table couldn't quite hide their curiosity.

There was a poorly hidden eagerness in Kompass' eyes when he answered, haltingly as if the words didn't come easily. She nodded, with a little uncertainty that seemed to disappear, and then she was walking back.

As they passed, she looked over at Max and said, simply, “Thank you.”

When Max went back at the crew’s table, Ace was patting the war boy on the shoulder, with none of the stiltedness they’d had towards each other at the beginning of the meal. Furiosa was smiling slightly, giving Max an approving nod when he sat down.

"Sister!" said Ace, full of relief. "I thought you'd taken a creepy shine to a breeder, but she's your sister!"

“I’m not sure what even... how do I act around a sister?” Kompass turned to Furiosa, with forehead scrunched, “Like how the Tribunes act towards each other?”

"Maybe with less touching."

“...like we’re with pups then?” Rachet asked, “Would that make Kompass the pup or his sister? Or both?”

“ _Neither_ ,” Furiosa said with some strange combination of emotions flickering over her face, “even less touching than with pups.”

“Then—”

“Just take it slow,” Furiosa interrupted gently, “you’re still mostly strangers, you’re… rebuilding that.”

“ ‘Still shaky,’ yeah,” Kompass breathed out, and shook himself all over, “Alright.”

Austeyr squished up next to the war boy, “And it’s not like we’re not all here to kick you if you’re being stupid, right? Or sort it out if things are rust.”

"Thanks. So helpful," Kompass muttered, but he seemed more relaxed with the thought.

Max watched as the table-full of crew seemed to cram itself tighter, Rachet reaching across Kompass to grab the jug of aqua-cola and not reclaiming his distance, Ace and Furiosa across from him wedging in close and leaning in to speak. He almost didn’t know that he could fit himself there, or if he had permission to, but Furiosa seemed to catch sight of him from the corner of her eye and shoved up against Ace some more so there was space next to her.

Food and water was slid into the open space on the table before he'd even sat down.


	31. Panic Bear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Panic Bear: A panicking novice climber clinging to handholds while searching desperately for a foothold.
> 
> _After the prior days sharing quarters he was beginning to grow used to the nightly rustlings of these people dreaming, snoring, getting elbowed into turning over, fighting for blankets, and sometimes sleepily patting each other to soothe a bad dream. This was different though. Rhythmic._

Max wished he could stop thinking about the sound of Furiosa, moaning. Wished he could stop picturing Austeyr's large hands spanning her shoulderblades, thumbs pressing deep into the muscles. He'd been so unsettled by Austeyr and Furiosa, or rather, by what he'd thought they were doing, by how she'd looked relaxed and comfortable pressed into the mattress like that and how he'd felt his body responding to it, by the sense-memory of her body under his own in such a different context, that he'd retreated to the cushion on the ledge to sleep instead of letting himself fall wherever on the mattress. It had seemed safer. 

Then the next day, moaning actually  _ was  _ that kind of moaning. 

After the prior days sharing quarters he was beginning to grow used to the nightly rustlings of these people dreaming, snoring, getting elbowed into turning over, fighting for blankets, and sometimes sleepily patting each other to soothe a bad dream. This was different though. Rhythmic. 

Max slowly became aware of elevated breathing, soft rustling. He opened his eyes and it took a moment to sink in what he was seeing below him on the mattress, the sparse moonlight coming in through the window making the shapes hard to decipher. 

When his eyes had adjusted Max could see that Kompass was pressed up against Furiosa’s back, hips grinding slowly against hers, one arm over her waist. In front of her, Ace had one heavy thigh between hers, and his face pressed to her throat.

Max might wonder about this more if she weren’t facing him, eyes closed and head tilted back in clear enjoyment. Her hand was on the back of Ace’s neck, and he could see the flex of her fingers digging in in encouragement.

It looked lazy, like they were all still half asleep, like it had required no thought or negotiation. And okay, he wasn't  _ surprised,  _ as such. They'd all seemed to have the kind of ease with each other’s nearness that this didn’t seem such a far step.

He wasn't surprised to feel his own body responding, either. It had been a long time since he'd had the energy or inclination for anything but grim survival, but the past week or so had involved more water, food, sleep, and relative safety than any time he could remember. 

What was surprising Max was that he didn’t feel awkward. It was a little strange to be seeing this, but he didn’t feel like he shouldn’t be here, like he wasn’t supposed to witness it. They were unselfconscious about being seen, and he knew he could turn around on the ledge and ignore it, but he ended up watching despite himself. The sight of Furiosa’s face, a little flushed, her lips parted, made him feel lightheaded. 

At some point Austeyr, who’d been asleep tucked behind Kompass, woke up enough to sleepily reach across his fellow crew to put a hand to Furiosa’s side, stroking slowly, as if just wanting her to know he was there too. Max blinked to find his hand twitching with the same urge - not to  _ do  _ anything, but to be there, to share in this moment somehow. To be there like he'd been yesterday night, unplanned, unthinking; tucked between bodies and curled up in the relaxed, animal warmth of several other people. 

He resolutely turned his back to the strange scene and tried to ignore the tiny, gasping moans Furiosa was making. A few minutes later she gasped sharply, voice gone thready, and then calmed. There were a few more moments of rustling, and then groaning as the men come too, and things slowly grew quiet again, breathing slowing down.

Max tried hard not to picture them, sleepy and sated and curled into each other, and failed miserably.

* * *

He had the uneasy feeling that he ought to be doing something, and that put every instinct he possessed on high alert. Then there was the memory of dinner, of how he'd ducked his head in close and she'd held her ground, not in challenge, just… amused. Interested? He'd  _ licked  _ her, for fuck's sake, on impulse, and the taste of her skin had kicked over tables in his head he couldn't manage to right. Especially not after seeing her under her crew's hands this morning, the sounds she'd made, the way she'd pressed into their touches. The way he was suddenly imagining she might feel under his own touch, strong and warm and humming with pleasure, and... 

He eventually washed up in the lookout post on the West tower, using the big scope there to look back over the route the warparty had taken. Were more cars coming, just slower? Had they split up on purpose? It hadn't seemed that grandstanding Imperator's style to show up with less than his full force, but the thought bothered Max. 

Janey found him up there.

"Same worries, I see," she sighed. He hummed and offered her the scope, having long seen what there was to see. "I want to send an expedition to see what there is, people, salvage, anything, but…" she murmured, focused in the distance. 

"Can't, mm, exactly send out men now, huh?" Max supplied. With the newly arrived warboys and some of their own injured, they couldn't afford to send out the reliable warboys. 

"No..."

"Want me to go and, uh, have a look?"

He wished he didn't feel so relieved when she nodded but even the  _ idea _ of leaving made him feel steadier, more in control.

* * *

Rachet had been ordered to rest in quarters, but at least he was allowed to work on projects - not that anybody but the Boss would have been able to stop him. She was there also, resting up from her injuries still. The wounds on her ribcage were healing well, from what he heard then Miss Gale checked on them, but twelve days was still not very long at all to recover. It was easy to forget it hadn't been longer; so much had happened. 

Max had come in earlier to let her know he’d be out for a few days scouting. She’d sighed and nodded like it was almost expected. Rachet had gone back to his tinkering and she’d eventually gone back to reading a book one of the Tribunes had brought her. Furiosa was midway through, finger tracing over the paper and lips moving soundlessly, when one of the new Vuvalini knocked on the door. Rachet hadn't figured out if her name was Vicky or Vicks. 

"Can I come in, pet? I'm not disturbing you and your crew?" she called, and Rachet wondered what she was expecting to find that she took such care not to disrupt. 

Furiosa was sitting in the window ledge, leaning comfortably against some cushions. The other woman sat down next to her, rubbing at her own knee. Rachet remembered that she was still recovering too. 

"I just learned that this…" she began, and then took a coiled up something from her bag. Offered it to the Boss. "Val's. She would have wanted you to have it."

Rachet watched curiously as the Boss reached out to accept, and it uncoiled in her hand - it was a belt, intricately tooled and obviously well-used. 

The other woman seemed to wait for a response, but the Boss' face had gone still. After a long moment the Vuvalini just said "I'd like to tell you more about her, when you're ready to hear it, pet. I remember you were close."

"Shine, Boss," Rachet said, gesturing at the belt. “Good work too, know who did the detailing?" 

"Valkyrie. She was one of our people." Rachet caught the Vuvalini woman turning to him from the corner of his eye.. 

“Oh! Yeah I remember that name from Tenday, she went chrome and well Witnessed,” Rachet said considerately.

The woman gave him a look he couldn't decipher. 

"Sad though.” Rachet tried, wondering if using such a soft word was proper here, but it seemed to be used often in their stories and maybe it was like the difference between shop-talk and war-talk and plain talk, maybe it was just the way they talked? He traced the details on the belt with his eyes, “Would have liked to ask her to show me tooling like that."

"You would have learned from her, would you? Even though she was not a Warboy?" The woman was looking at him intently.

"Of course! Ain't got so much time that I'd turn down the chance to learn shine stuff.” Rachet shrugged as she leaned back a little. He went back to trying to sort through some piping and some joins that will be needed to repair the Boss’ arm.

“In the Green Place we used to call home, we’d have skill circles where many young ones could learn and practice such craft all at once.”

“Not trainers? Apprenticeships?” Rachet pondered, not looking up.

“Only when they got old enough to know where they wanted to go with their knowledge. Before then everyone got taught a little of everything, Val and Furiosa here was in a group together.”

“She must have been shine then,” Rachet decided, given how Furiosa is, that no one but the best would have kept up, “Isn’t that right Boss?”

Rachet turned towards Furiosa when she didn’t answer and blinked, suddenly uncertain.

“Boss?”

Her face was oddly stiff, even now. And the Vuvalini glanced at her and then it’s like all the air was taken from the woman’s face, like a weird deflated tire.

"Oh pet, I am  _ so  _ sorry. Don’t be like th— She thought the possibility of a new Green Place was worth the risk, even if she might not get to see it. She wouldn't want you to regret it. Did you ever get a chance to talk about how you two—" She seemed to grew more halting with every word, looking at something on Furiosa’s face. “Oh maybe I shouldn’t have…” She shifted her weight again, “Do you want to be alone?"

“I…” And Furiosa drifted her word off in a strange way, like she hadn’t finished deciding how to finish her sentence. She sounded croaky, like her throat was bein' squeezed. 

“You never did get a chance to breathe all these days, did you?” The older woman nodded firmly to herself and stood up, “Don’t you worry, we’ve got everything handled. Take as much time as you need.”

Then she leaned in and touched her forehead against the Boss', lightly, not like a proper headconk at all, and left, giving Rachet’s good shoulder a bewildering squeeze as she went. 

The Boss' jaw was clenched, and she drew breath with an odd sound. Rachet looked at her with alarm. Was there something wrong with her lungs again? And what did that woman even think she needed to take time for?

He got up to sit next to her after setting down the arm, unsure why he was doing it. He had the feeling she needed something from him, but he didn't know what it was. He'd still try, though. He always did. 

"Val was... your friend?"

Furiosa made a painful sounding noise and blinked rapidly, looking out of the window without seeing. 

"Val was your crew?" 

That made more sense, if the Boss was this upset. There were a few crew members what she missed more than most - Rachet knew there were still moments Sprocket was on her mind. He didn't understand how somebody she had met on the Fury Road could have taken such a place so quickly, but the hitch in her breath said that she had. 

And if the Boss had known this Valkyrie while they were pups, that was a whole ‘nother deal.

“She… she went out chrome though. I heard it myself at Tenday.”

Furiosa covered her face with her hand. 

“It’s okay,” Rachet continued, a little helplessly, “I promise I heard it. It was Witnessed.”

She curled up around her middle like something had ripped her open, and Rachet reached out without knowing why, hand hovering over her shoulder. He tried to think of what Austeyr would do and rested his hand lightly on her arm.

Furiosa curled into the touch, into him, and Rachet found himself in the odd position of trying to curl around her taller form and not knowing what he was trying to protect her from. He darted his eyes around to check the door and the window, but they seemed secure. He held her tightly because that had always made him feel better and hummed to her as if it was nightfevers or dreams.

It was daytime though, and she was awake, and the nightmare wasn’t leaving her.

Rachet didn’t know what to do. “She was Witnessed,” he said comfortingly, and hoped everyone else came back quick.

She let out a hurt sound and clutched him back harder. 

* * *

"Hello Ace. Got some time to talk?" 

Tribunes Toast and Dag approached the meal hall table where Ace had just had shared food with a group of warboys eager to be considered for his crew.

"Sure," he nodded, glancing at the warboys still hanging around, and they took the hint and left. 

"How's your new crew coming along?"

"Got some guys, thinking about who to add," Ace said, wondering if they'd sat down opposite him, shoulder to shoulder, on purpose. He hadn't realised the Tribunes would be liable to use this kind of intimidation tactic, but their intense scrutiny made him have to quell his restlessness. 

"We hear you picked Oti," Dag said, with something of sharpness out of proportion with the words. 

"I did."

"Any reason?"

Ace raised his eyebrows. 

"He was brave to do what he did before the siege. And a good fighter. Could use him."

"On your  _ crew _ ."

"...yes…?" he said warily, aware that more was being asked than the words said, but still not sure where this was going. 

"So, you'll be having your crew in your quarters at night, like Furiosa?"

_ What an odd question, _ Ace felt, but he didn’t even know what was odd about it because bringing crew to their quarters was just something that Imperators  _ did _ . "Furiosa originally brought us to her quarters because she didn't want us to be in the Blood Shed," he said, to win some time to think. "Because it wasn't safe there."

“Originally. But she kept bringing you there?”

“ Yes.” Ace said shortly, not wanting to delve into how they, each of them, always felt the sleep to be had there was secret, stolen, something warboys weren't supposed to have, the feeling of your six guarded by many. Not feeling like he could speak for Furiosa on this matter,  _ especially _ given their misunderstandings, but thinking maybe she liked having her quarters so well-guarded.

"What if a crew member didn't want to?" 

"Didn't want to  _ what _ ?" he growled, losing patience with the implications they were making. 

"Sleep with her."

His initial reaction was who  _ wouldn’t  _ want to rest safely piled up in crew, but then realized that the Tribunes might be asking something else. Something darker. So he split the difference and answered both possibilities, "' _ Only if you want. _ ' That's what she said. That's what she  _ says _ , in her quarters."

"And is that what you'll be saying to your crew?" Tribune Toast asked.

"I thought you'd been telling us it was safe in the Blood Shed now?" Ace said.

They stared at each other. The Tribunes looked at each other and then back to Ace, who was growing impatient with whatever it was they weren't saying. 

“ What,  _ exactly,  _ are you asking here?” 

"Other Imperators brought crew to their quarters." Tribune Toast said.

"For - how did they say it? For a  _ Use _ ," Tribune Dag spat. 

"Not like Furiosa.” He said, shoulders feeling stiff, “They brought one or two of their crew up, only. And didn't exactly let them sleep there."

He's always known that wasn't right, even before Furiosa had turned out to be so different, but there had been so much that didn't feel right, the reality of it was only now beginning to sink in. Xe, the War Rig Imperator before Furiosa, had been more interested in the breeders. Ace had always been absently relieved the Imperator’d done so, and it was only now sinking in how that really just meant most of the abuse had been spared the crew to be heaped elsewhere. Imperator Xe had only sometimes taken up one of the new crew members, claiming they needed discipline. In hindsight, that had mostly been on days when his preferred breeders weren’t available.

"We just want to know if you'll be doing that too," 

Oh.  _ That's  _ where this was going. The idea of treating anybody like Xe had treated them made him feel queasy. He also couldn't imagine taking his own crew to bed like Furiosa because they weren’t—

_ crew.  _

_ Huh.  _ Ace blinked a bit as the irony struck him, trying to figure out why the words felt different in his head.

"Reckon I won't be there much. Wanting to spend time with—" he hesitated. He had no other word for it. "crew and all. Her crew."

They stared at each other for a long moment.

“You realize that doesn’t mak—” Tribune Toast began.

“ Yeah,” Ace interrupted irritably, "I'll have my own crew. That's still my  _ crew  _ though."

Tribune Toast looked down at the table and covered her mouth. 

"So you didn't pick Oti because you can Use him?"

"What? No!” Ace knew that Oti was a favorite of Imperator Prime and frankly easy on the eyes but it’d never much occurred to him to touch anybody who so clearly didn't want to be touched. Not with how nice it was to touch people who enthusiastically wanted to be touched, and touched him right back, even if sometimes a crewmember had been very specific about the sort of touch.

"But you said you could use—" 

"I want him on my crew because he is a good fighter, and loyal to the Tribunes," Ace said, slow and as clear as he could. "And brave, and good at talkin' to people. I need an Ace who talks to people."

“Okay, and you would prefer to be used by Furiosa instead?”

Ace shifted uneasily. "Not Use, exactly. Not like… that. Nice things."

“Never heard of two Imperators bunking up before."

"Never heard of Tribunes at all until a while ago." And yet, here they were. He looked at them pointedly. 

He frankly couldn't even imagine taking Oti up into his quarters, let alone anyone else. Why would he? Especially since it wasn't like he was leaving Furiosa’s quarters and she'd made it clear she’d still like him near, even if Kompass was her new Ace. 

He couldn't imagine that any new crew of Furiosa's would be joining them in her quarters either. The past weeks had forged something out of the six of them, Wastelander feral included, that he couldn't explain. The massive shifts in perception and knowledge recentering themselves into something true, something different, out of the hurts and the shared vulnerabilities and the forgiveness. He'd always seen himself as the crew's protector, but now he also felt— protected? His uncertainties and vulnerabilities guarded and kept safe even if it’d had been revealed to them. It was new and daunting but it made him feel easier than he'd ever had, stronger. 

Even the idea of trying to ‘catch up’ somebody new made him wary and exhausted. 

"So you're gonna have your own crew, and Furiosa's going to have a new crew, but you're also still on Furiosa's old crew?" Tribune Toast said. The corner of her mouth twitched. "Maybe you guys should think of a different word. To stop this confusion about different crews."

"Harem," Dag suggested, as they both got up to leave. “I think we’ve found out what we came to find.”

Ace didn't know what that word meant, but the devious quirk of her mouth made him decide to reject her suggestion out of hand. He’d have to bring this up with the others, maybe one of them could think of something.

But.

But maybe in a little while. Ace felt like he should first figure out by himself where he’d stood on the idea, why his crew and his  _ crew  _ felt so different. And what  _ made  _ it so different. 

He needed to go customize his patrol vehicle anyway.

Maybe spend a little time in the Pits, see if he could find a good scrap, because his balance felt off, right now, for some reason.

* * *

She felt empty, after the Siege. After everything wound down. After no more was required of her. 

It was exhaustion and the giddiness of surviving, running on fumes. She had been on the mend, but sniping, not to mention going around dealing with aftermath of the Fixer and the Gatekeepers’ deaths, had drained her. Her ribs ached, her breath came short, and all she wanted was to sleep. Sleep and not think of things like belts and tainted arms and the things that Joe ruined. The things and people that she ruined.

All these past seven thousand odd days she'd had goals. Survive. Crawl up to a position with some control. Never let Joe know who she was. Get to the Green Place. Make it back to the Citadel. Make Joe regret everything he'd ever done. Get better. Get well enough to be up and involved. Defend the Citadel…

Now she'd just.. 

ran out. There was no urgent reason that needed her on her feet. There had barely been need for her during the siege itself; the Citadel had come together to defend itself. The women had stood strong with new allies and reclaimed allies, Capable had taken lead with bargaining with the war parties when all she’d said had only caused more fighting.

And it worked.

They made it… easy.

She was safe, as safe as she could remember ever being. Joe was dead, and so were the other Imperators, the Organic Mechanic, the Fixer. More than that, she had her Ace back, and he could even take her place now. She had Max, who'd come to tell her he was going out scouting for a few days, looking out for her from afar. She had her crew by her side. Her six had never been so well guarded. 

She didn't want to move, and there was no compelling reason to make herself. The Council could run the Citadel perfectly fine without her. Maybe even better, without her old ideas holding them back.

She just wanted to sleep. Rachet, still recovering, was happy to keep her company. 

On the second day Gale visited them. She checked on Rachet's wound, finding it healing as well as could be expected. Then she let herself sink to the mattress next to Furiosa, her knees clicking, giving an update on what the Council was doing. 

"We had a good talk with Corpus this morning.” 

Furiosa just hummed her attention, but she was not even sure she really needed to know. It seemed a bit ungraspable, distant and cloudy, and there were other people taking care of it.

"We've gone down to talk and the first five of the war party have come up. Ace is a big help." She chuckled. "That man knows everybody. We're splitting them up over the towers much as we can."

Furiosa hummed in acknowledgement, not managing to scrape up much interest. 

"Got me a little worried, my girl. Thought you'd be up and at it by now."

"Just tired," Furiosa mumbled.

"All right," Gale said after a pause, "I suppose you have a lifetime to rest up from."

Gale's warm, weathered hand lightly petted Furiosa's hair. And Furiosa felt selfish, because it wasn't like the Wasteland was ever kind to anyone. It wasn't like nobody else needed rest. She should get up. She should help. She had things to do.

But maybe she could have a few moments more.

"Sleep as much as you need, my girl."

Joe had called her 'My Feisty' and she'd felt queasy ever since when somebody called her 'my' anything, claimed her that way. Even 'My Boss'. So it took Furiosa by surprise when she found herself turning over and tucking her face against the folds of cloth over Gale's hip. When she found herself seeking the contact with Gale's hand. When the words 'My girl' made her feel anchored, safe. 

_ "This is our Furiosa." _

She used to have anger to fit in the space where the Green Place wasn’t, to fit the spaces left empty when everything and everybody was taken away from her. She used to be able to convince herself that surviving was enough, that it was all that her mother had wanted.

Furiosa was not sure what was left if she was too tired to be angry, too careless to survive. 

Too  _ safe  _ for anger or survival to matter.

* * *

"Can't you make her better?" Austeyr asked, and Gale looked up at the warboy in wonder. He'd seemed the most emotionally rounded of the lot, short of maybe Ace. Then again, she didn't imagine Joe had ever allowed negative emotions that weren't anger or battle rage. Was it any wonder Furiosa's lethargy alarmed him?

“I told her a funny story to cheer her up and even brought her some freshly roasted lizard but she…” the war boy looked helpless. “She just rolled over.” 

“Maybe she's too tired to feel better right now.” Gale said. 

“ But you can just— Why wouldn’t she want to feel better? All she has to do is to get  _ up _ .” He said, distressed and frustrated, “She’s not even interested in going down to the garages, the way she always is when she’s stuck abed. Are you sure there’s nothing wrong? I don’t know what else to  _ do _ .”

“ Sometimes there’s nothing  _ to  _ do.” Gilly huffed out, cleaning her rifle next to Gale. “You just have to let it ride. Can’t skip the road in getting to a place.”

"She just needs some time to get through this, lad," Gale said, resisting the urge to pat the warboy on the shoulder. He seemed so genuinely concerned and upset, but that was the last thing Furiosa needed now. "Don't rush her, she could do with a couple days rest. If you can't give her space, maybe stay out of her way for a while."

The war boy looked at her, devastated. “Just  _ leave  _ her?”

“Not that, no, just… let her be sad. Sometimes that's good.”

"But why would she want to be sad? What's good about that?"

“Haven’t you ever grieved before? It’s just about the final thing you need to do to let something go.”

"Why would I want to? It's pointless waste of time.” Austeyr was practically vibrating in place. “Indulgent. I guess it's alright for a full-life maybe, but not for halflives who ain't got much time to begin with.”

“...even for half-lives though.” And Gale murmured and she could see the words throw the war boy, “And besides, it’s necessary. Surely you have things you feel sad over too. There’s enough time to—”

“ _ There’s nothing I need to grieve _ .” The war boy said loudly, “I’m  _ lucky _ . I should be  _ grateful  _ for how lucky I am.”

They all paused, surprised by his vehemence.

The Vuvalini looked at each other as the echoes died off. “Is that something you feel or something you’ve been told?” Gilly asked quietly.

"Should be down there, scraping by," he gestured out the window, "but the gatekeepers took me up, even though I wasn't the right colour, brought me to the pups. Let me be painted white so I'd look right. Of  _ course  _ I’m grateful."

Austeyr huffed out a breath, looking about to scream, and walked off. 

_Even dead, that blasted Joe still has his touch everywhere,_ Gale thought.


	32. Piton

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Piton: A metal spike that can be hammered into rock cracks for protection, a type of anchor rejected by Traditionalists as climbers leave pitons in the rock._  
>   
>  It was maybe the third day, maybe the fourth, Max had lost all sense of time and space. There was a time when Max would have been more than happy to find bodies and salvage, but it felt depressing now, even though they'd been enemies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for... aftermath of violence, and implied cannibalism? Let's go with that

It was maybe the third day, maybe the fourth, Max had lost all sense of time and space. There was a time when Max would have been more than happy to find bodies and salvage, but it felt depressing now, even though they'd been enemies.

Some of the bodies were clearly injured, and he wondered if there'd been a fight for the right of who got to ride on other vehicles when their car stalled, if these men were forced to stay behind under the merciless sun, waiting for death without water.

Austeyr had been an enemy, once. He wondered if one of these bodies could’ve been how Austeyr might have ended up, if he hadn’t found him trying to reach the Citadel. There’d been no water on the bike and no food on the war boy from what Max remembered tell. Maybe the war boy would’ve died, trying to get back to the Citadel, if Max hadn’t been heading in that direction; the Citadel’d been in no shape to send out scavenger parties.

In this direction no scavengers have been by yet, either, to pick the area clean.

Just Max.

He found himself restless around the bodies, slightly unnerved to take the loose items from the war boys, but gone ahead because he didn’t know if he’d be able to travel fast enough to get back before other scavengers moved in. He also placed small items he found in the cars on the buggy’s trailer; empty water containers and fuel tanks.

Some of the cars had already been relieved of their vital engine parts, presumably by the war party as it left them behind. They would need to come back here with tow vehicles

The land was mostly empty, nobody bothered him.

The worst was a cluster of two cars he’d found. There _had_ been three warboys, now there were two, raving mad from the heat and dehydration, their mouths stained red with dried blood.

Or maybe they were mad from that.

One immediately attacked him, or tried to, weak though he was bulkier than Max, imprecise and screaming 'Valhalla'. He’d wrestled the guy to the ground, but was knocked off him by the other one, all elbows and teeth and desperate speed.

He tried telling them he was from the Citadel, but that just made them howl ' _traitor_!'— he supposed it didn't matter to them if he was from Furiosa or from Noxious, they'd been betrayed by both. The larger one was ponderously heaving himself to his feet, swaying.

Max knew he should have kept his distance as soon as he'd seen they were alive, but it was hard to forget Austeyr. Hard to forget that the Warboy had needed a chance, too. 

He shook the inclinations away from himself and caught the slighter one by the neck, keeping snapping teeth away, and swung him around to crash against the other who was finally unsteadily upright. He ran to the buggy which had been idling and tore out of there.

Max watched from the rearview as they tried running after him until they stopped, bent over, breathing hard, pressing hands to knees.

He watched as one reached for the other, but not to help. Red bloomed.

Then he didn’t watch anymore.

**  
**  


* * *

"'ere, Kompass, can you take word to them upstairs?" Toolbox said, and Kompass stopped to hear what it was. The council members made a point to be accessible, to come down here regularly and to make it known that the crew leaders were welcome to come up to see them with concerns. So he wasn't sure what Toolbox would need him for.

"We's almost outta lead, you see, only the pipes to the barracks needs repairin'."

Kompass hid a grimace. Lead was something they'd need to trade for, and they weren't ready for a trade run to Bullet Farm.

"I'll tell 'em," he nodded, not thrilled to be the one who'd be delivering that news, but understanding why Toolbox hadn't wanted to be the one who brought attention to it. You had to be able to dodge and run when you delivered bad news in the Citadel.

And this was nothing he wanted to bother the Boss about, in her current state. This was different from how she was after she first came back, how she was when she was usually wounded, where she’d kept trying to leave her bed in some form or another and they had to find ways to keep her there. The Boss was finally staying put, and it should have let her heal faster but she seemed to only become more lethargic with the rest, her wounds seemingly healing somehow slower. It was troubling, especially since Kompass was newly her ace and was supposed to guard her against dangers.

But there was no danger he could see to fight. When the crew tried to make her feel better, it’d mostly seemed to make her more still, more numb, and eventually Kompass and Austeyr let themselves be herded out, just as Ace came back. When they told him of the situation, the older man just sighed and scratched at his brand then went to talk with the Vuvalini, shooing them away. Austeyr had gone off to the pup dens in a huff and Kompass had wandered down to the garages, wanting something to busy his hands.

Only to be handed this festy messenger task. It was a completely mediocre thing to be chewed out for, but he’d probably have a bit of immunity for being Furiosa’s.

The Pump Room was largely empty, with only Janey and one of the new women - the one with the bone-white spiral hair - chatting quietly on the balcony.

"Kompass," Janey greeted. "What brings you?"

He noticed they both had their rifles in easy reach, though it was hard to tell if that was habit or a leftover concern from the siege, when they'd sat in strategic high places and picked climbers off the sheer rock walls of the Citadel . He'd learned they were deadly shots even from this height. He shifted uneasily, because he knew they'd certainly have no trouble downing him if they didn't like his news.

"Lead. The Repair crew needs - we're out."

"Hmm. Is that a trade good? Haven't come across it much in the books," Janey said. "What is it used for?"

"Aqua Cola pipes."

The other woman, Gilly, gave Janey a look Kompass couldn't decipher.

"Water pipes. They use lead for... water pipes."

He nodded, because yes, that's what he'd said, what was so strange about that? He couldn't tell if she was angry about the news that they'd need to scramble to trade, but there was something about her tone that worried him.

"Can't they use something else?"

"Don't know, just delivering a message for Toolbox," Kompass hedged uneasily.

Janey got to her feet. Gilly shouldered her rifle - they never went anywhere without, not even Miss Gale, but that didn't make Kompass feel any more at ease.

"Well, we got some questions. Take us to him."

_Oh, shit._

* * *

“...and here,” Austeyr pointed at one of the carvings on the barrack walls, checking the pups for comprehension, finding some comfort in the familiarity of the teaching, of being able to _do_ something, of being able to say something and have pups be happy at him. “This is one of the formations we use most often on Imperator Furiosa’s produce runs. Notice the positions of the outriders and the coverages; if there is an attack from any area the bikes can move quickly to—”

“What are you doing?” Deka interrupted him, dark face made darker by her expression.

“Teaching the pups,” he said with some confusion, not sure why she was being so rude about it, although feeling a little like an intruder anyway from how these barracks were given over to the Wretched. It wasn't like he could go over this material in any other location.

“Does this normally take place in the barracks, we have people who are resting.” She waved over at the sleeping ledges where there were Wretched still lazing about during midday.

“But the sun is up.” Austeyr said, “There’s no time to sleep and they’d need to learn this quick. We’ve found this is the fastest way.”

“This is the perfect time to sleep,” the woman argued, “during the hottest part of the day, it’s better to move about at night when it gets cold.”

“But the pups are awake anyway, could we just do it quiet?” He noticed some of the Wretched kids were edging up to his little group of warpups. “Our notes are all here, on the walls.”

“They don’t exist elseplace?”

“Not this set, no,” Austeyr found himself irritated that even _this_ wasn’t working out like he’d wanted, “we can’t just move the carvings and haven’t had time to carve the new quarters, plus there’s not so much wall in the Citadel as we should repeat it.”

The woman seemed to pause in thought and Austeyr took the chance to return to his lesson.

"Okay, pay attention here— you too, little ones," he nodded at the small Wretched kids, trying to include them. They looked fascinated. "You wanna be a warpup? You can, but you'll hafta know all this stuff."

"No! They're not gonna be warpups," Deka said sharply.

Austeyr stared at her, stung. "Why not? You get stuff from going on raids, extra food, Aqua Cola... 's better than down here."

"We've got enough for them, now. We don't have to give them up anymore."

"I'm glad I got given the chance," Austeyr said, feeling vaguely offended. "Got to grow strong, learned war. Done chrome things." It sure seemed better to him than whatever the ragged people down here did with their time. Sleep, mostly, it seemed like. "Better than down here."

Deka gave him a look he couldn't decipher, something angry-sad, and lead the little Wretched kids away.

"What if they _want_ to be war pups?" he said to her back.

"They don't know any better," she snapped.

And while Austeyr was trying to find a response she asked the child by her side, "You want to forget who your mother is?" The young one hurriedly shook his head. "Good."

“What does that have anything to do with being a war pup,” Austeyr followed, asking heatedly and feeling vaguely squirmy about his insides, “What does that have _anything_ to do with learning how to make War? We've talked it over already with the breeders, we're not taking them away. We've worked out a schedule—" he glanced around, trying to find one that looked like hers to gesture to, "Look, your pups—”

“These aren't— _I can't have any more_ ,” Deka interrupted, not looking back. Her voice sounded strange. "These, they can decide for themselves when they’re older if they want to learn. We're not so desperate anymore that we have to give up our children just to give them a chance to survive."

“But by then it’s too late, you gotta teach ‘em this stuff early!”

“They have _time_ now. With water, food.” Deka insisted, reaching the doorway and pausing, “So long as they live past 3,000 days they’ll end up living longer than most War boys.”

“That. That’s not true.”

“Haven’t you ever looked at each other, how old y’all usually are? Why’s there never older ones?” 

“Ace is older,” he said defensively.

“That’s _one_ out of how many war boys?”

“But the nightfevers get us,” Austeyr protested, “and the tumors. We just make sure we go out chrome before they kill us.”

“Hah, us Wretched gets tumors too,” She turned finally, and pulled at her collar to reveal a mass of distended skin on her shoulder and clavicle before letting the cloth fall, “and how old do you think I am?”

Deka was clearly older than he was, but that didn’t mean…

“I will probably outlast you, one way or another,” the woman said quietly, with a strange sort of grief, “like as not by you tearing yourself apart or throwing yourselves into what’ll wreck you.”

Austeyr found himself completely confused by her words; taken aback, feeling defensive, and uncertain how to read this.

“Ah, what do I care, you’re lucky to be alive, as a war boy. Isn’t that right?” her tone was stilted. Austeyr couldn’t parse her phrasing or meaning at all, and she suddenly whipped around walking quickly away, leaving a scattering of confused Wretched children behind her, her desert-dark skin and desert-dark clothes fading quickly into the shadows.

**  
**  


* * *

There were stretches of trail where there was nothing, just a winding path around dunes that made everything too quiet.

(It made it seem like his name was on the wind.)

Max shook his head again, and almost looked forward to the next bend of road that might bring him to a sprawl of vehicles he could mark on his map. They’re coming now in groups, rigs that he didn’t recognize at all from their running fight to the canyon, and that should have been pristine except for whatever sand and dust the Wasteland left on them.

Instead, they looked like they’d been in battles. Newly dented from where the paint chipped, newly charred from how the ash stained, bodies left behind carelessly and faces twisted up in betrayal.

Max picked up what he could and marked down what he found. This was an unnaturally quiet stretch of land, despite the wrecks, and he thought that it's probably because when the war party came through it’d scoured through the area like a windstorm, devouring everything and licking the land clean.

But it was a windstorm that tore at itself, Max thought, as he found more teethmarks on bodies bled dry, as increasingly he’d found beltless and shoeless war boys. He might’ve thought some other scavengers had come through but there was white fingerprints at the belt loops and around the ankles that told its own story.

**  
**  


* * *

Toolbox blanched when Kompass lead the two women into the Repair Cave, and gave him a murderous look.

Janey ambled up to Toolbox, and Kompass had seen her command Warboys, had himself jumped to her orders without a moment of thought, but she did not look like that now; simply looked like she was interested.

"I'll be happy to take your issue to the council, but I need to understand it a little better first," she said amiably. "Can you tell us 'bout what needs repairs?"

Gilly hung back a little, but listened with an increasingly blank expression as Toolbox nervously explained about the pipes that led Aqua Cola to the barracks.

"The Immortan granted us the tap special, and ain't none of us addicted, Miss, we's always real careful to take no more than our ration," Toolbox indicated the water skin on his belt. "Often less, we're strong, we can resist it."

"Why are these pipes made of lead? The pipes further up in the mountain are copper," Janey asked curiously.

"Like I said, Miss, the Immortan gave em to us special. Said to build a special pipe system for us, said only the best for his half-life Warboys."

Next to Kompass Gilly made a choked-off little noise, and he looked at her. Her eyes had gone cold and hard, the hand he could see clenched into a fist. Was she angry that the Warboys had been granted special Aqua Cola? Were these women about to take it away?

"An' he gave us lead to repair 'em, but I've clean run out." Toolbox looked twitchy, apologetic. Kompass could understand that; he'd fucked up and they all knew it.

"All right," Janey said, with what sounded to Kompass like an effort to sound normal. "Thank you for telling me about this. We'll bring it to the council."

"In the meantime," Gilly spoke up for the first time, "If the pipes are leaking we shouldn't be using them. What's the nearest water point that's on the copper pipes?"

Toolbox looked uncertain, but Kompass supplied, "Up by the food distro."

"Very well," Janey nodded. "Until we have this fixed, close off the lead pipes completely. Everybody can fill their canteen when they come up for their morning grub, all right?"

They couldn't very well object to a measure to stop Aqua Cola from spilling, so they nodded uneasily.

**  
**  


* * *

As Max continued up the trail he couldn’t help noticing that the war boys he’d been finding were thinner, smaller, than those he found on the first day.

Weaker.

The ones who’d been left behind first. The damage and the wounds weren’t consistent, some of them had unbroken skin except for large tumors, looking dried out. Others clearly fell in battle.

There was one slight war boy still stuck on a harpoon, and Max couldn’t help flashing to the memory of turning around and finding Rachet similarly wounded, in a place where he might’ve stood if not for the war boy.

Did this nameless war boy shove someone else away, to take the damage on their own body?

It was so very rare to find people willing to sacrifice for others, in this Wasteland, that Max spent some time wondering about it. Especially rare to find so many people in one place willing to fight and die like this, despite the wildness around the eyes of those still living war boys he’d found, screaming, ‘betrayal!’ It’d suddenly hit him how tenuous the situation with Furiosa’s crew had been even more than he’d ever known, how she’d betrayed them and how it might have so easily tipped into violence had some factor or other been different.

Max remembered how he’d let down his guard around her within hours, changed from fighting against her to fighting with her in the space of one breath. One shout.

What must it have been like, to be around her for more than just three days, but for _thousands_? How could that betrayal feel? And how did it weigh, loyalty to her versus the loyalty to their ‘Redeemer’? He’d remembered the conflict that occasionally flickered on Nux’s face at the Vuvalini camp and as they were racing back to the canyon, but he didn’t remember any such expressed by Furiosa’s crew towards Joe. Was it because the man was already dead, by that point? Or that they were simply too busy trying to process… her?

He’d known of their story, through snatches. Bits told second hand by the girls and some bits more by Austeyr during their walk. And most recently by Rachet who’d been keeping himself distracted while the woman called Feng worked on his arm. The war boy talked about how giant the sandstorm looked from the War Rig, and Max could only hum in shared confusion at his being tossed off it.

Rachet had talked, quietly, about how it was hard for him to know things, how he didn't always understood people as well as the others, and he was kinda new on the crew anyway but how he liked having a place on it. A role, even if for a short while he’d thought Furiosa found other crew to replace him, shiny prized crew that knew more than he could ever know.

Even as he was being stitched up, he’d hurriedly rushed to explain to Max (when he’d caught his expression) that Furiosa explained some, apologized even, and that her actions was just the situation they all found themselves in. Like being matched up in the Pits.

 _Was it so simple as that?_ Max wondered, coming up on yet more wreckage, war boys being mangled by each other.

He was not sure that he could imagine Rachet as one of those he’d found who tore at the war boys around him, but he’s not sure if it was some quality in the war boy himself or if it’s only that Max hesitated to see Rachet in all this death.

Then again, Furiosa's crew obviously hadn't been a random group of war boys. From what Max could tell it had been the result of careful selection, testing and teaching. Furiosa had taught them there was value in their lives, not merely in their passing. 

He hoped Rachet was healing well.

* * *

"So you'll convince the others to trade for the lead?" he asked during the long trek up the steps. Gilly hurt her knee in the siege, so they were taking their time. Kompass felt strangely compelled to stay with them, make sure they get back safely; the conversation with Toolbox could have gone far worse. He wasn't sure why, but he felt like he owed them.

"Kompass, do you remember when Gale told you to stop using the white paint?"

He nodded, puzzled what that had to do with anything.

"Why was that?"

"Said it were makin' us sick," he shrugged. It was hard to believe, but it was true that Warboys had always seemed to get lumps earlier and get sick faster than the breeders or even the Wretched. He didn't know what to believe. He missed the feeling of the paint on his skin, the ritual of applying it.

"The thing that is in the white paint that makes you sick?" said Janey carefully, "that's lead."

Kompass stopped in his tracks, watching the two women climb the steps ahead of him. He shook himself and started moving again, though he didn't try to catch up, needed the space around him. Because if the paint… if the _Aqua Cola_ — Had the Immortan _known_?

No. That didn't make sense.

"Janey," he said, barely loud enough for her to hear, but she stopped immediately, turned to him. "How do you know— what does it—" he growled at his own incoherence, his thoughts tumbling.

"Have you been drinking the water further up, since you got back to the Citadel?"

He nodded.

"How does your head feel?"

Kompass blinked.

"...fine?" he said eventually, knowing as he said it that that was new.

"Did you used to have more headaches? Sleep worse?"

He had the sensation of something sitting on his lungs, of not being able to breathe deep enough, remembering all those stories they grew up on, listening to, at the altar of their Redeemer.

"That was from water addiction," he finally said. "You get that if you drink your full share."

Gilly made a sound in her throat, and Janey shushed her.

“I guess that makes sense,” Janey nodded, and they continued up the steps.

Kompass nodded to himself and followed them. Of course it was water addiction.

Although... he didn't think he'd been drinking less than before, these past weeks. With all the water bottles they'd kept in the Boss' quarters to make sure she drank enough... it was hard to tell how much he'd been drinking, but he had been to the latrine to piss almost every day. If you weren't addicted to water you didn't need to do that. He decided to watch his intake more closely to make sure he wasn't becoming addicted.

But how was it possible that he had no headaches if he were becoming addicted?

He continued up the steps, hearing a soft conversation drift back from the two women.

“...can't let them continue...”

“...delicate...”

“...long way to go.”

'Can't let them continue? Did they want to take the Aqua Cola away from the Warboys? Kompass felt his hands clench into involuntary fists. He knew that the old women, the one that came from the place the Boss was from, didn't much like Warboys. Even Janey, who was friendly and asked them questions and actually listened to them when they answered, sometimes looked at them with an expression of... Kompass couldn't place it. As if she'd just eaten an unusually bitter bug.

He and the others had tried hard to work with the women, because they were Furiosa's new crew and it clearly made the Boss happy to see them cooperate. But if they were planning to take away the Aqua Cola, he suspected there might be some trouble.

He needed to talk to the Boss. She'd understand, and she'd talk to these women. Tell them what a bad idea they'd gotten into their heads.

Except that the Boss was… not well, right this moment. She'd been asleep, or at least in bed, for four days. Miss Gale said at one point that she was 'heartsick' and that it wasn't something she could mend from the outside.

 _No, the Boss should not be bothered with something like this._ It fell to Kompass to make sure these women didn't take away the Warboy's special Aqua Cola and started a riot.

Kompass and Ace, at least. Thank V8 that the older man had been promoted, recognised by everybody as the representative of the warboys. He could help Kompass make these women see sense.

Ace was with Furiosa right now. Kompass couldn't take him from there, so he turned back around and then hesitated. Normally he would seek out Miss Gale to explain medical matters to him; she always seemed pleased to teach things, as if knowledge was something to share, like music, rather than something to hoard, like food or aqua-cola.

He was pretty sure that Gale would agree with the other women. She was not the right person to ask.

Kompass sighed and headed for the infirmary. It was the last place he wanted to be, and speaking with he Soundless was the last thing he wanted to do, but he couldn't think of anybody who would speak to him plainly.

The injured from the siege had mostly cleared out, and there were only a few people on the ledges. It had nothing of the smell of sick and old blood it used to have, the moans and whimpers of those dying soft. There was a Mill Rat sleeping and a pup looking feverish, and there was one black-clad woman bathing the festering leg wound of one of the warboys who had come with the war party.

"Are you sick?" she asked him.

Kompass shook his head a little harder than necessary. "No. Come to ask a question."

"Archive and Miss Giddy are inside," she nodded her head toward the cutting room. "Knock first."

He murmured his thanks and forced himself to approach, to knock even though all he wanted was to be _not here_. He owed it to his fellow warboys, to his crew, to find out about the water.

"Now what could _you_ have come for," said the old lady, Feng.

Kompass stood uneasily under her gaze, unsure if he'd been asked a question or not. Another old woman appeared behind Feng; Miss Giddy the history woman.

"Well?" Feng demanded.

"I— the others, they say—" Kompass rallied. "Lead. What does it do to a body when it's in the water?"

"Builds up in your body, makes you sick," she answered without hesitation. "Belly aches, tired, weak," she raised an eyebrow at him, and he wondered if she was waiting for a reaction, and what kind. "Short of breath. Makes it hard to go to the dunny. Bad sleep, headaches. Dizziness, your legs feeling strange…"

"That's— that's _night fevers_ ," Kompass blurted, his mind spinning. This couldn't be right.

"Hah! Yes, that's what you warboys call it, isn't it?"

"Night fevers come from…?" he had to pause to turn the thought over, because it had so many implications.

"From lead," the old woman nodded. "The lead you've been drinking and smearing on your skin."

"But the Immortan **—** but _Joe_ gave these things to us."

"Yes. He did."

Kompass stood frozen for long moments, because that could not be right. The Immortan had given them things that made them sick? Had he not known? No, the lead pipe system had been given to them with such ceremony, and much celebration of the Immortan's generosity - though in hindsight it had been more declaration of that generosity. Perhaps Joe had known but had given these things to the people who could stand them best, his half-lives, so he didn't have to waste the water but wouldn't risk poisoning others.

" _Why_?"

"Lead also makes you irritable. Aggressive," Feng said. There was vicious scorn in her voice. ”Kama-krazee."

Kompass couldn't find stable ground to stand on.

"So it made us better warboys?" Except that the Boss had never liked 'kama-crazee' and had always said she wanted them sharp and present and thinking.

Kompass ignored the stares of the two women as he tried to make sense of this.

"Perhaps he figured we were half-lives anyway, might as well make us better warboys for the time that we have?" he suggested haltingly. "Encourage us to die with honour?"

"Kompass," said Miss Giddy, and he startled to realise she knew his name. "The lead is what _makes_ you half-lives. Without the lead you'd all live much longer." She sounded kind, sympathetic in a way that felt like a tight band around his chest, that made everything different suddenly, that made him understand she was giving him bad news.

"W-what?" he stumbled.

“Haven’t you noticed that those you call Wretched are generally older than the War Boys?”

“But—” his mind was _whirling_.

"He _poisoned_ you, on _purpose_ ," Feng said bluntly. "He made you all sicker than you would’ve been and then offered you a story about Valhalla so that you would be eager to die for him."

Miss Giddy gave her a sharp quelling glance.

"But…" Kompass subconsciously brushed his hands over the lumps that had started appearing in his side.

"Benign, for most of you. You don't die of those alone."

Kompass thought about how the appearance of lumps got warboys in a hurry to find their way to Valhalla. And about how Ace had carried his lumps around for many thousand days.

"Of course, now the lead is in your system, stopping the intake won't suddenly make you live long lives, but it should be longer, less sick."

"But _why_?" he said helplessly. "Why would he…."

"Because the disgusting schlanger needed people who would die for him, and would never think to threaten his position. He made you sick so he could be a god to you. So that you would be perfect, eager, _battle fodder_." Feng said this with authority, but also as if saying so made her feel better, with relish. “I’m fairly sure the Organic Mechanic kept records, if you want to dig through that foulness.”

Kompass clenched his hand around his opposite wrist, nodded at the two women in acknowledgement, and turned on his heel.

**  
**  


* * *

Max saw something in the distance, something red, and something moving; but the movement looked strange. When he approached, crows and other vermin scattered.

Wasteland scavengers alarmed by the vibrations his buggy caused.

There was a bloody circle on the ground, some wrecks nearby, and maybe fifteen war boys laid in it with slit throats and their skin scraped of paint. A dead Imperator was thrown across the top with the word ‘ _traitor_ ’ drawn across his chest, the grease clearly palmed off his head.

An Imperator and his crew, Max guessed, with some strange feeling welling in his chest.

All these long days he’d been finding evidence of war boys turning on each other, but the sheer waste of discarding these sixteen people (in their sleep judging by the lack of defensive wounds on most of them) still staggered him. Even Wastelanders protected those they considered ‘theirs’. He wondered how much of this disregard for life was directly from Joe’s influence, the man who’d discarded his War boys carelessly, like he’d seemed to discard anyone who was not himself. How it was so easy for them to count a war boy as not-’theirs’. How this surfaced in the bodies he’d been finding on the road, in the ways they turned on each other, and in this bloody circle in front of him.

Fifteen war boys, and their Imperator, and they hadn’t been able to defend in time. Possibly because they hadn’t been looking out for each other. Or not enough men had been in a position to help.

 _Max_ , Glory called, and turned back the way he came. She was running as if being run down, as if being hunted, as if wearing all the faces of all the people that he— 

_Sometimes betrayal is simply not being where you're supposed to be_ , Max thought.

The trailer was almost full anyway.

He headed back to the Citadel.

**  
**  


* * *

Kompass ended up on one of the small gardening ledges, looking out over the Wasteland. Unsure why, of all the changes and new information, this was the hardest to process. He'd already known the Immortan was not a good person, with the way he'd treated the Boss, had treated the wiv— Tribunes.

Kompass found the idea that Joe hadn't been good to the Warboys either much harder to swallow. The Immortan had praised and encouraged them with one hand, and fed them poison with the other, and Kompass could not fit his brain around that. Didn't he always say they would ride with him on the highways of Valhalla? McFeast with him? Didn’t he lift them from the Wasteland and provide them food and shelter and aqua-cola?

He told them he was their Redeemer. That he cared.

Austeyr dropped down next to him heavily and Kompass startled badly from how little he saw it coming.

"I wasn't that quiet," Austeyr pointed out, looking him over. "Got a lot on your mind?"

Kompass decided that the last thing they needed was more secrets.

“There’s something I just found out.” He breathed carefully and crushed his hands against his eyes for a second to help him think, “Keep it between crew for now.”

* * *

They sat together on a green ledge, staring out into the wastes, fingers occasionally straying to their lumps.

"And you're sure?" Austeyr asked, a quiet sort of numb hitting his mind. He couldn't wrap his head around it, especially not with the conversation he had earlier with that Wretched woman. He’d thought… he’d thought he’d be lucky to go out chrome soon. Had been almost a little disappointed that the siege with the war parties hadn’t resulted in a worthy enough situation to be Witnessed for because if his tumors were large enough to mess up his aim so badly for lancing then surely they were large enough to end him soft. He’d thought maybe three hundred days, six hundred at most, before they took him; maybe a hundred days where he’d be able to help out before the nightfevers started rusting him down into uselessness.

He hadn’t been sure that the new Tribunes were so adverse to softness that they’d let Furiosa make sure he'd go out chrome, like she'd made sure with Afterburn. If she'd even be willing to. 

"Don't think that woman Feng has any reason to lie to us," Kompass said, staring into the distance. “The Soundless have a base now, in the infirmary, and they answer to the Tribunes if only to save face.”

If only to be more legitimate, Austeyr knew.

And from Kompass’ words Gilly had seemed so _angry_ with the thought of the lead. Not angry with the warboys, Austeyr knew. Not angry because they got something extra. Angry on their _behalf_.

"We did all seem to sleep better in the Boss' quarters."

"I thought that was just…you know."

"Yeah."

"But, thinking about it, no night fevers either."

"No." Austeyr didn’t understand what his voice was doing, if 'no' meant agreeing with Kompass or if 'no' meant denying the situation. What would it mean that night fevers would have never hit? That in her room they were only… sleeping off the dregs of lead still in their systems, and so the nights passed more smooth? Was the comfort to be found with Furiosa only because it didn’t make them more sick? Was her crew’s strength nothing more than that found in the absence of poison?

But that can’t be right, either. Did Furiosa know about the lead? Did Joe know just how bad the lead was?

 _You’re lucky to be alive as a war boy_ , he remembered the words. Did _everyone_ but them know that to be war boy was to be made sick, ailing? Except Austeyr thought he wasn't remembering the phrasing...

"I don't understand.” He shifted, frustrated. Resettled himself when his motion knocked down some small rocks from the ledge. "Why would he do something to harm us! He Raised us Up. Said we would Ride with him. He was our Redeemer!"

"Feng said he needed us to be willing to die for him."

"We _were_! There was no _need_ to—"

"If we'd be eager to get to Valhalla, eager to go out chrome because we thought we'd die soft soon, none of us would think about taking power from the Immortan."

His mouth clicked shut. And Austeyr nodded slowly, willing to accept the latter part because he couldn’t really think about… about being ‘eager to go out chrome’. Because he would have, he’d just hadn't succeeded. Because he _was_ , eager. (Had been. _Was,_ still.) Didn’t know how to think about how going out chrome might be just as meaningless, if the tumors were a lie.

It was all he'd ever known to aspire to. Serve the Immortan. Go out good enough that Furiosa would be proud. Make his belts be one of the ones she would sometimes take out to look at and sigh, or even wear. 

"So he wanted us to be strong… not for too long. Just long enough to serve him?"

"I think... so." Kompass said slowly, looking away as if scouting the horizon, but face so conflicted that Austeyr could see it even in profile.

"We should tell the others."

"Think they'll believe us?"

They stared into the distance for a while.

"There must be…” Austeyr muttered after a long while of staring blankly, “Must be... diagrams somewhere. Notes. Something more than just old women sayin' it's true."

Kompass searched through his memories again, feeling it cycle helplessly through certain words and avoiding others, but he vaguely recalled, "Feng said the Organic Mechanic must've kept notes. That we could come look at them."

They glanced at each other. They'd never gone looking for proof before, they'd just always had to take the Imperators at their word. The idea that they would go snooping through paper…

Except it wouldn't be snooping if they had permission, right? And even if they didn't, maybe this was important enough to… to make sure they had confirmation? The entire idea sat wrong. During a run, to waste time questioning orders meant that something would go wrong, someone going out mediocre because you weren’t already in place and doing your job.

"Think we should?"

But in this situation, they didn’t have orders. Didn’t have a set job or a place or a role. And Furiosa always said she wanted them to use their heads.

"The Tribunes don’t have any fondness for Joe. I think they'd let us search.” Even as he’d said this firmly, Kompass found his fingers straying to his lumps again. He still couldn't wrap his mind around the idea that they might just sit there. That they might not be killing him. He'd been so busy to make something of his remaining time, to be as useful as he could before he ended, that the idea that he might get to see the Citadel become the place Furiosa wanted it to be, that he might even see Rett grow enough to be welcomed on the crew, was startling.

Sprocket had been Rett's mentor, and after Sprocket had gone out all shine, Kompass had stepped in, making sure the training he’d gotten before didn’t go to waste. He missed Sprocket sometimes too, and it was a nice thought that the war boy’s plan for Rett was still carryin' out, and that Kompass might continue to carry it out far beyond expectation.

Warboys sometimes made pacts between them. To finish something the other had started; things like overhauling a salvaged car, looking out for a specific pup, taking care of a gardening ledge they'd spent a lot of effort on.

There was even a project that Kompass suspected had been going since they'd first taken residence in the Citadel; each new warboy told the plan and expected to carry it forward. The warboys had hacked out the barracks for themselves, and they were still always working on it, widening tunnels, making new rooms according to the plan sketched out in stone by the first warboys, designed to give maximum space while minding the integrity of the foundations. Except now the Wretched were in the ground level barracks. He was pleased with the new space the warboys had been allotted, but it was regretful that something so long-running had to be abandoned.

There was one agreement between Furiosa's crew members that any new recruit got taught first off. You take care of the Boss. _You don't leave her alone in a jam unless you're certain your death fixes the situation. If you can do nothing else, you can at least Witness her._

Kompass suddenly realised he was her Ace now. It would fall to him to impress this on new crew members. To lead by example.

"Yeah. Let's go find proof."

Being ace now, it was his place to move into position even before the Boss said a word, his _job_ to anticipate problems. This was a problem that would come down hard on the War boys, and thus on Furiosa, if there was any such a problem.

He needed to quit being so mediocre about all this and find out one way or another. And either find them a path out or a path through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Lead symptoms include](http://www.lead.org.au/fs/fst7.html) a host of both physical degradation symptoms in motor functions but also mental/emotional symptoms like cognitive development and increased "Aggression, violence, hostility, anti-social or delinquent behaviour."


	33. De-pump

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _De-pump: to rest, recover, and flush away the ‘pump’ (restricted blood flow "old blood" coupled with built-up metabolic toxins/waste)_
> 
> Toast heard the noise of warboys rummaging around in one of the little side alcoves in the Infirmary, and yanked open the door. If they were in here messing stuff up, or even trading paint—
> 
> "Hey!" she said sharply. "What the hell are you doing?"
> 
> Two of Furiosa's warboys were looking at her with large, startled eyes.

They found diagrams like none they’ve seen before, made bodies look more machine than they’d ever thought possible, and wordage in wordburgers in walls of text. It was all more letters than they’ve ever seen in one place before. Kompass and Austeyr could read a little, but that didn't help all that much when they came across four and five syllable words that didn’t even look like any word they’ve ever spoken, or even words they had no trouble with but were put together in bewildering ways.

“What in the world is a ‘University’ of Massa…’Massachusetts’?”

“Or a ‘Neu-rotox-icol-ogy’?”

Kompass squinted at the yellowed pages and tried to guess at words past the various stains and age-marks.

"We could bring this to the Boss, see what she says?"

Four days since the siege, and Furiosa continued to stay in bed. She didn't even sleep so much anymore, just.. laid there.

They'd looked to Ace for how to handle this, but when he wasn't busy assembling his new crew or trying to keep things running, he just sat with her quietly, not bothering tryin' to cheer her up at all. He'd talked to Miss Gale, so maybe that's what he'd been told to do? Ace even seemingly ignored her except for how he was always touching her in some way. Her shoulder against his leg, or his hand absently petting her hair. It didn't seem to make her any better, but she did press into his touch. 

Maybe a problem to help fix would get her interested? The Boss did always like fixing things.

* * *

"This is about lead," Furiosa said slowly, looking over the papers they'd brought her. She seemed to be doing everything as if it took more effort lately, as if she were moving through motor oil instead of air. But at least she seemed to take some small interest instead of none.

"Yeah. Did you know lead was bad for people, Boss?"

"N-no…" she frowned at the paper, looking uncomfortable.

"I feel like I should… should have known though," she finally added, hunching in on herself. 

Kompass hummed, trying to make sense of that, but only glanced at her a bit before simultaneous frustration of not knowing what was ailing her and not understanding the wordburgers made him feel overwhelmed and kind of worked up about it.

“Never liked the taste of water from down there,” she said.

He’d thought it tasted sweeter and kind of liked it, but hummed in support. The water up here tasted more coppery, like blood.

"Here's a reference to a report about water addiction. Did you bring that with you?"

They leafed through the papers. They'd mostly brought the diagrams, because those looked most logical to them.

"Is that related?"

"I think… I think so…" she sighed, looking at her paper. "Says here that he researched dosage. That's probably as much direct proof as there is."

Austeyr and Kompass looked at each other and then got up, going in search of more papers.

“We’ll be right back.” Kompass promised.

“Rachet, ah, keep an eye out?” Austeyr asked.

The healing war boy just grinned briefly, waving a wrench, before going back to his pile of scrap. Furiosa simply moved a pillow to lay her chin on so that she could just quietly watch him work, making no move towards the tools herself and falling still again.

It’d made something in Austeyr's gut twist; the parts Rachet was working on was the skeleton of Furiosa’s arm that’d been retrieved from the canyon. It needed all new wiring to work again, and two of the fingers had been crushed. She was usually very invested in keeping it functional, or in having some replacement, and for her to stare down at the prosthetic with such conflict unsettled Austeyr. He hurried Kompass out the door to find what they needed and return quick.

* * *

Toast heard the noise of warboys rummaging around in one of the little side alcoves in the Infirmary, and yanked open the door. If they were in here messing stuff up, or even trading paint—

"Hey!" she said sharply. "What the hell are you doing?"

Two of Furiosa's warboys were looking at her with large, startled eyes before she even really registered they had been pulling binders and books off the shelves and looking at them.

"Tribune Toast," said the one that was Furiosa's new Ace. Kompass.

They both looked uneasy, like she'd caught them at something they weren't supposed to be doing. Which was probably exactly what was happening.

"What the hell are you doing? You're not supposed to mess with this stuff. They are valuable references, not something to wipe your ass with!"

"What?! We'd _never—_ " Kompass closed his mouth with a click, and she could see him fume, as if she'd gravely insulted him.

Maybe she had? She didn't think Warboys could even read, but the way they were looking at the papers made her suddenly doubt that. She noticed their hands looked clean, as if they'd washed them specially for doing this. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, not wanting to insult them further and escalate this.

She hadn't seen Warboys show any interest in books before, and she found herself wanting to know why they would be here in the Infirmary's little library. What was here was only of interest to Gale and Feng and the new Infirmary crew. Toast sometimes swung by, trying to cross-reference books here with the piles that had been in the Vault with Miss Giddy, which she’d been trying to work into some semblance of order when she had a spare moment.

If they could read - if they had an _interest_ in reading - she ought to encourage it. Even if she didn't exactly relish interacting with them.

“What are you looking for?”

They glanced at each other and the shorter one carefully placed his binder back on a shelf but Austeyr, that chatty one that mostly spoke for the crew at council now, he turned his papers around and pointed at a line near the end. “D’you think there’s something about, um, dosage? Or about this bit?”

Toast glanced up at him and narrowed her eyes, but he seemed earnest. When she looked at what he’d pointed to, it seemed somewhat familiar. _Water Addiction_. She remembered a short, handwritten reference text that’d initially gave her the thought that they should have records of what wordburgers were in the infirmary collection versus in the general collection of texts from the vault.

"Yes, I've—" she frowned up at the tallest shelf, the one where the fragile and handwritten texts were kept. Both warboys backed away to give her space as she stepped over the threshold into the little room and climbed onto the wobbly little desk so she could reach up.

She didn't notice the hovering hands behind her back until she made a triumphant sound and turned around with the text, and they hurriedly pulled away their hands, looking a little sheepish as she jumped down.

_Huh._

She shook her head to dismiss the confusing moment and focused on the text. It was a sheaf of handwritten notes titled with a scrawled _Leaded Water, Correct Dosage notes._ She showed it to the warboys, and it took a long moment for them to read the first page, lips moving.

"So it's true," Austeyr said quietly. "Correct dosage _..._ of _lead_ . It was on purpose. And he tested it on war boys. On _pups_."

Kompass's face was a blank as he stared at the paper, his fists clenched. “ ‘ _Joe said to decrease it so ‘boys peak at 27_ ’ , he even gave the Mechanic a _time_ he’d rather have us break down by.”

Toast looked herself then, and from what she’d quickly read, even just that page was damning. Knowing how Joe used people it didn’t really surprise her. It was just one more thing to be mad at Joe for.

“I don’t want to believe it but—” the taller war boy leaned heavily against a wall, “But there’s no reason why this would be faked.”

“Mechanic was always in Joe’s favor, his things were always secure.” Kompass agreed, fists whitened and shaking, “We knew that whole thing with. With the Boss and the breeders was festy, but I didn’t think Joe was so completely _rust_ all the way through.”

Toast kept watching the stocky war boy carefully, watching his fists and preparing to defend. So she was completely unprepared for when Austeyr suddenly roared and slammed his fist against the wall he was leaning on, leaving a red smear

“ _Hey!_ ” Kompass yelled and moved forward but he wasn’t fast enough to catch the other war boy’s fist in time. He caught Austeyr around the waist, shouting and pulling him back as Toast scrambled out of their way.

“Was _everything_ he gave us poison?!” Austery shouted back, eyes bright, “Was _everything_ he made us into _diseased_ , and tumor’ed?”

Toast was unimpressed, “It’s just water, you can switch over—”

“It’s not _just_ water. It’s _growing up_ on the water, and his words,” Austeyr interrupted, “It’s drinking it because it’s sweet. Believing it was a special gift because we were his favoured warboys. You weren’t there when Joe first gave us the pipes, when he made his speeches about the honour he was doing us—”

"You think he didn't tell us what honour he was doing us while he hurt us? How glad we should be of his attention? While he raped us and told us it was _treasuring_? You think he didn't feed us poison? All his ‘wives’ heard his speeches too.” Toast shot back, “He spoke to us about how good he was to you, to all of us.”

“You weren’t in the _barracks_ ,” Austeyr insisted, “You had a closer view, fine, but he didn’t speak of lead, called it special water, and you weren’t there when we drank his words up. When it’s the only way out of the wastes, when you think that to be like him was to be _everything_ , the only way to have your life mean anything, to have breeders like him, be strong like him, talk like him, pale like him—”

Toast couldn’t stand to hear Joe praised so much. She thought about Cheedo, who'd never know anything else than to aspire to be Joe's wife, and hadn't known how to imagine something better.

When they were in the Vault Miss Giddy always challenged them, always pushed them, and she realized she had to be Miss Giddy in this moment, that she couldn’t let this slide, “There’s _nothing_ to him that can’t be found elsewhere and better! Women aren’t to be ‘had’, and strength isn’t everything, nor talking, nor being _white_.”

“ _That’s my point!_ ” The war boy slumped in Kompass’ hold, staring at her defeatedly, “Even, I mean, the Boss, Furiosa, she.” He gestured at his own wrist, where the clay dust had been washed off, “She’s been saying my color is shine. _But I don’t know how to believe her_.”

They all breathed quietly for a moment as the echoes of his shout died off.

“I try to listen, but I don’t know how to _feel_ it.” Austeyr finished quietly. "They say we're to go without paint and I—"

“...do you think mine is shine?” Toast asked carefully, after a pause as Kompass’ hold tightened into something resembling a hug.

Austeyr shrugged, not meeting her eyes, “Joe picked you. And it’s better than...” _than his_ , she finished in her thoughts during his silence.

She closed her eyes for a moment to command herself, and then asked, “Do you think any of us Tribunes are unable to heal from Joe’s poison? Or Furiosa? Do you think none of us can make something of ourselves apart from what Joe meant us to be?”

“But you’re _women_ , doesn’t it—”

“We heal because we have to. To survive in this Wasteland.” Toast shook her head, “There’s no room for mediocre women. We learned how to see poison, to survive; because that’s the first step, seeing it. But none of us, _none of us_ , has to be what Joe’s wanted to make us into. Not his wives. Not his war boys.”

She said this, realizing that she felt relatively safe, here, with these men all but cracked open in front of her. Wondered if the whole Citadel could feel this way. She watched as the two digested her words, looking at each other and then measuring her, and Austeyr getting steadier on his feet.

"You gotta tell us about a second step later, but for the first… We’ll need some," Austeyr gestured vaguely. "Worked out proof to show the rest of them."

"Like a medical encyclopedia?" Toast asked. He frowned, so she continued, "it's a book that will have a clear explanation about lead and why it's bad for you."

He visibly rallied at this concrete progress, eager to shove his confusion aside, go back to an issue he could handle. "Yes, that would help, if there was a wordburger saying it."

Toast found herself pointing at books for the men to take off the shelves, until they both had a little stack. Finally she put the bundle about water addition on top of Austeyr's pile.

"Will you be okay reading this?" Toast asked. Austeyr shrugged uneasily, maybe a little embarrassed. 

"Learned from car manuals. Handwritten is harder, especially…" he looked at the spiky script of the Organic Mechanic. "But Furiosa will help, and Miss Gale."

"I will too, if you want," she offered before she could give it too much thought. This was important, what was happening here— warboys looking for proof to present to each other. Warboys willing to discover things that would not show Joe in a good light, and being faced with irrevocable truths. She wanted to support it.

Austeyr's eyebrows shot up in surprise, which only made her nod more firmly.

* * *

"How is she?" Gale asked.

"Boys are trying to cheer her up," Ace said, frowning a little. He didn't think it was what Furiosa needed right now, but he struggled to explain why. He and the Vuvalini healer were sitting up on the terraces on an unofficial lookout, scanning the wastes.

He’d been trying to talk to the women occasionally about Furiosa because they’d seemed the most sensible and unsurprised by the whole thing. Like they’ve seen something of that sort before, and seen people come out of it.

In Ace’s experience the only time he’d seen people in this kind of mood was in nightfevers on the Organic Mechanic’s ledges, when boys realised they were going to die soft. No war boy had seemed to be able to come out of that funk. He'd hoped it might be different for full-lives, and the way the Vuvalini seemed to respond to Furiosa, that might actually be true.

They weren't acting like they thought she might die, and that helped him be calm about it.

There was bit of a commotion on one of the terraces below and he glanced over, but the sounds didn’t seem to escalate.

"Yeah, better get them off that track," Miss Gale sighed. “Think Furiosa’s been suppressing feeling a lot of things, just to get by. Won’t ever really heal unless she’s allowed time to feel ‘em all.”

"I wish she'd feel better, but—" Ace looked at his hands, feeling powerless and frustrated with it. "Know it's not something I can fix."

They both watched as Miss Giddy came into view, shoving past some bushes, storming towards to door heading below, Feng following after, shouting something about ‘regulations’ and ‘restrictions’.

"Well done, that man," Miss Gale said. "People ain't engines. Sometimes they just need time to fix themselves up."

“Any advice on getting the boys sidetracked? They want to help, change things.”

They watched as the History Woman came to an abrupt halt and Feng nearly crashed into her.

Giddy whipped around and poked a story-tattooed hand in the middle of Feng’s chest, driving her backwards saying something low and intently.

Ace watched with interest. He'd only ever seen warboys fight. This wasn't as bloody, but it looked surprisingly vehement. His rations were on Miss Giddy. The Soundless were terrifying but Miss Giddy looked like she was not afraid at all, and he'd heard the stories about how she'd survived the canyon and got warboys to do her bidding. She looked fragile, but apparently it was like a fine blade looked fragile; better not catch it at the wrong angle.

“ ‘Course the ‘boys want to help, nice that they do, they should stick around with their offers to help, but they won’t be able to _do_ any good. Not themselves directly.” Miss Gale chuckled.

The History Woman’s hand spread out and gently pushed Feng away, going through the doorway leading away from the terraces, uninterrupted by Feng. The Soundless stared after her.

“You can tell ‘em that, iffn you want, that she’s only gonna get better when she's ready. She's got a lot of stuff to chew through first, and nobody should try to hurry that. Be there for her, makes sure she eats and drinks, and let her get up when she's ready, don't make a big deal of it.”

Feng suddenly threw something into the ground, sharp, hooked, and then jumped over the lip of the terrace. Before Ace could even get a clear look at the hook, it’d somehow followed after the woman.

He’d give a lot to study that up close. “What’d you think all that was about?” Ace nodded towards where the women had been arguing.

"Could be anything. They don't agree on much."

"Seem to enjoy disagreeing though."

“And _loudly_.” Miss Gale laughed.

Ace eyebrow rose, he wasn’t sure whether to read into it, not having known the other woman long enough to read the tilt in her smile.

“Anyway, all you boys of Furi’s are a sight to see, tryin’ so hard.” The Vuvalini patted his hand fondly, "I'm glad we have you lads. Such a thing as she’s in is hard to come out of without support."

Ace didn't know what to do with that. “ ‘Furi’s’? “

“Aren’t all of you still Furiosa’s, even if in different crews or taking a trip out for a breather?” Miss Gale gestured in the direction that the Wastelander drove off in.

When she put it like that, he supposed he was still Furiosa's, at that. No longer her Ace - and he might feel strange about that if she hadn't given him her own sigil plate, as big a vote of confidence as anyone could possibly have given him. No longer her Ace or on her crew, but still in her confidence, still welcome in her bed, still _hers_. Even in these moments when she was low, she seemed to prefer when he found the moments after meals to sit next to her. At night she’d curl up against him and made pleased little sounds about warms, instead of that awful time when she was all stilted and he’d found himself sitting across the room.

“Guess there’s that.” Ace shrugged, letting the words settle around him like a new pair of pants. Might fit better after wearing them in a little more, the word weren’t _wrong,_ really, just. New.

 _Furiosa’s,_ he thought, and maybe it wasn’t so new a thought as all that.

* * *

Toast had maybe spent a bit of time imagining what it was like inside Furiosa's quarters. Done a bit of whispering about it with the others. It was so hard to imagine that Furiosa might freely chose to have this many men sleep in her quarters that it was a source of fascination for the sisters. It was not as if they had any other examples of women desiring the company of men.

Toast would never have imagined that it could be so… _domestic_. Furiosa was sitting on a ledge, huddled in a blanket. Kompass had taken the space next to her, and they were working their way through his stack of books together, marking pages with little bits of string from the ragged ends of that same blanket. Austeyr had picked a spot near the base of the ledge, and Toast had settled nearby, close enough to pass papers between them. He was currently slowly reading through the entry for lead in the encyclopedia she'd given them.

The youngest warboy - the one she'd given her cloth to when he'd helped them get trousers - was on Austeyr's other side, and he was fiddling with an engineering project. He'd glanced away as soon as she'd looked at him, and she wondered if he was ashamed of the things he'd said that day. He seemed kind of oblivious to the mood in the room however, occasionally making cheerful comments about some adjustment he was making while the four of them read through papers with slowly mounting horror.

" _'Warpups are showing sudden drop in skills and coordination,_ " Furiosa quoted. " _suspect current rate of lead exposure is too early and reverting development.’ Recommended only giving the water to the barracked warboys to ensure we'll be getting some useful years out of them."_

They were all silent, letting that sink in.

" ‘ _At the rate of a ration a day, progression of their lead levels and corresponding health should be as intended by Joe._ ’ " Toast added from what she read off the notes she’d been working on.

There was a sudden sharp clank as Rachet dropped what he was working on, and raised his head to look at them, clenching his hands. “He called himself our ‘father’, he said he _loved_ us. That he was protecting us.” He looked away again as if it was all too much, “Festy _schlanger!_ ”

Toast’s blinked in surprise, not even realizing Rachet’d been listening in because he hadn’t even been looking at them all the while and hadn’t seemed to be making any relevant comments. But when she glanced at the others, they’d only nodded at his outburst as if he’d simply been continuing their conversation. Austeyr bumped his knee into the younger war boy’s.

Rachet kind of shook his head and returned to his project, shoulders even more tense than before and fingers shaking. _How long had Rachet’s shoulders been tense?_ Toast wondered, having disregarded the war boy for his appearing not to pay attention. Austeyr had set down his papers long ago, but now Toast noticed that the finger he was using to trace the words was shaking as well.

Kompass’ papers were being crushed. He suddenly set them down and started trying to smooth them.

"They thought their time was up," he said, low and soft, almost as if to himself. “Crewmates, they thought—”

“My aim.” Austeyr interrupted, “It’s pretty messed. I was expecting to go chrome that last run of ours, had it gone..." he hesitated, glanced at Furiosa. "regular.”

“ _What_.” Kompass burst out, looking at the other war boy in alarm. Rachet’s head darted up again and Furiosa grimaced.

“I mean, crew was thin afterwards so I decided maybe I could help out some but… Didn’t think I’d have another full hundred day being able to ride with crew.”

“Because of your tumors?” Toast guessed, seeing their earlier conversation from an additional angle.

“Yeah, didn't think I'd be much use, anyway. And the night fevers.”

“But you haven’t been getting them, have you? The nightfevers?” Rachet piped up.

“...no?”

Furiosa shook herself from whatever dark thoughts she'd been having, and nodded absently. “Don’t think I remember anyone shaking awake.”

Toast can’t remember the woman sleeping at all in her presence, even when healthy, and when wounded seemed to start awake in short intervals unless she’d been doing especially poorly.

“When we were clearing out the Citadel of Lance’s men,” Kompass demanded, looking at Austeyr, “You’d always tried taking point. You offered yourself to the Soundless in bargain if that wastelander didn’t come back. Are you _still_ thinking—”

Furiosa sat up, spine gone rigid. “Aus offered himself _first_? The Soundless didn’t demand it?”

“No, he—!”

“Stop!” Austeyr cut off Kompass, “I knew Max would come back, like any of us would come back.”

“And during the siege?!” The broader war boy seemed puffed up, agitated, and Toast was starting to see the distress now, past the bluster. She wondered if this was new to them, worrying about another warboy's death instead of celebrating it.

“It’s not like we could afford the Boss going without more of her command staff so I took point.”

“ ‘The Boss’ “ Furiosa stated quietly, “cannot afford to go without any of you.”

She kept Austeyr's eyes for a long moment, and Toast saw something settle in the warboy, before he cast his eyes down.

Rachet prodded Austey'rs side, poking at the lumps. “Too bad we can’t just cut these things out.” 

Toast started, then leaned forward, “Remember when you asked me what the second step is?”

“Huh?”

“With poison.”

“What does—”

“You find the poison first,” Toast said, “And then next you have to remove it. Draw it out.”

“Cut it away?” Rachet continued for her, poking at the lumps again. Austeyr squirmed. “Might not have liked him, but Organic Mechanic was smart. You’d’ve thought if the he’d had the ability he would have…”

All the war boys in the room froze and looked at the papers scattered around them, the proof of how little care Joe’d given for continuing the lives of those who did war for him.

Furiosa looked angry and thoughtful. “...we should talk to Gale and Feng.”

* * *

Toast watched Furiosa as she’d went back to flipping through the papers only to press her hand to her forehead, furrowed, and then set the journal aside.

Rachet looked up as she slid from her window ledge to sit next to him, just watching as he fiddled with whatever it is he was working on. The other two had left to talk to the healers, but the last war boy was still injured and apparently on bed rest, even if he couldn’t seem to stop moving. The war boy kept up a stream of idle chatter, occasionally asking for Furiosa’s opinion or advice, and she would sometimes point out some part he could improve. Mostly however, now there was nothing in front of her to work on, the woman looked drained of whatever energy she’d had. Maybe they were doing her a disservice, handling everything in the Citadel so that she could rest?

Toast found herself at a loss for what to say. But they didn’t seem to expect anything from her, and Rachet would occasionally look up and give her a relieved smile as if glad she was there. So she continued reading through the notes, and dropping nuts and washers stolen from Rachet’s scrap box to mark particularly damning sections.

There was a knock on the door that had Rachet yelling, “Come in!”

She’d almost expected to see the war boys again, but it was Capable; her sister glancing at her somewhat surprised but mostly pleased.

“I’ve come to change your bandages again, is this a good time?”

“It’s fine!” Rachet said cheerfully, and set aside his project, then paused and looked at Toast, “Unless…?”

“It’s fine,” Toast echoed, “Just doing some research.” She raised the journal she was currently working on and Capable raised an eyebrow, crouching down next to Rachet and setting aside clean bandages.

“Furiosa?” Capable queried, but the woman just shrugged.

“Fine.”

“Alright,” she said, and turned to the war boy, concern on her forehead. The way that she’d unwrapped his bandages and matter-of-factly cleaned and re-wrapped it said it was an action that she’d done many times, and Toast felt a little ashamed.

“I didn’t realize you were coming here to take care of him.”

“Gale’s sometimes busy with tempering Feng’s bedside manner,” Capable said, not looking up. “Or helping with the Wretched, there’s a lot that’s ailing them that we could help with. And not enough hands ready or willing to learn healing.”

“Gale could still have come up, while you learned with Feng,” Toast pointed out, still feeling thrown from how she’d lost track of Capable. Toast had been busy trying to sort out logistics and inventory, the amounts and frequency of rations and supplies, with Janey and the other Vuvalini; and when she’d had a moment, organizing the books and working on her self defense. She’d thought she’d kept up enough with each sister from their conversations during the Council and as they settled down to bed but she was clearly missing some things.

“Why couldn’t it have been me, taking care of Furiosa’s boys?” Capable asked, suddenly looking up at her. “Why are you so insistent it be Gale?”

Toast thought she was the only one feeling kind of newly at ease with them. But then, Capable had folded Nux under her wing quickly even while they were running from Joe. It should be no surprise that she had no issue getting close to Furiosa's warboys. Except these ones had said such horrible things… “Not insistent, just surprised that you are.” In the infirmary there were the other women, and the Soundless whom the war boys seemed leery of, but Capable seemed to be coming up here alone, and had no assurance that Furiosa would be around.

“I think healing’s important,” Capable said stubbornly, jaw hard as she looked back down to work.

“Important enough to not come up in our conversations?” Toast asked. It was like her sister had been keeping it secret.

“I thought it a kindness. With how,” Capable looked up at Furiosa and Rachet warily, both who’d been watching quietly, “With how conversations are still strained.”

“About war boys?” Toast guessed, “You mean how some of us,” _Dag_ it went unsaid, and some of the women from the court like Polaris, and... and _herself_ if she were honest, “are still frightened of them?”

She saw Rachet open his mouth, and then stop himself, biting his lips.

Furiosa sighed, and offered, “I could have Ace talk to the war boys some more?”

“Maybe only certain ones, the ones who are listening don’t need that,” Capable shook her head, “And I don’t think that’ll get rid of the women’s fear.”

“What can,” Rachet tried, “Is there anything I can do?” He looked distressed.

Capable shrugged and finished tying off his bandages. "Too much has happened from too many war boys for one person do to much at all to stop the women’s fear completely. You can’t just tell them to stop feeling what they’re feeling. But you've already changed your tune, haven't you? You’re listening now.”

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

Capable smiled at him. “That helps. Just keep being kind.” She turned to Toast. “Council’s tomorrow morning, we should get an early rest.”

“Yes, there’s things,” Toast gathered up some of the journals around her carefully, minding her bookmarks, “That should be brought up with everyone.” And she would like take the chance to walk with Capable back to their rooms, catch up a little and catch her up on the news.

"I'll send Kompass and Austeyr to the council tomorrow. And I think that they have plans for how to explain it to the others in the barracks," Furiosa said.

Toast agreed, "They’d mentioned gathering ‘proof’ for the others. We should probably prepare for a bit of upheaval though, right?"

“War boy discussions get…" Furiosa searched for a word. "Lively."

Toast nodded and they both got up to leave. She thought she had some idea, given how Kompass and Austeyr and Rachet reacted.

(Eventually she’ll look back on this thought and laugh, because she had _no idea_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to know about lead toxicity (though we are obviously taking some liberties)
> 
> [Joe isn't the first to poison his own people, sadly](http://www.npr.org/2015/06/22/415194765/u-s-troops-tested-by-race-in-secret-world-war-ii-chemical-experiments)


	34. Objective Danger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Objective danger: Danger in a climbing situation which comes from hazards inherent in the location of the climb, not depending on the climber's skill level. Most often these involve falling rock or ice, or avalanches.
> 
> _Ace wished he'd thought to drop by Furiosa's quarters in the afternoon, so he'd known sooner. Would have had a few more hours to get past the shock of it. Instead, he'd found out late at night, barely slept, and had to cope with Council in the morning._  
> 

Ace dropped down on a ledge in the hallway outside the council room, and let his head knock back against the rock wall. He was tempted to do it a few more times, it might hurt less than his current headache.

He was still trying to wrap his mind around what he'd been told last night, by Kompass and Austeyr and Furiosa. Could it really have been poisoned— how could Joe—for _all that time?_ His loyal warboys?

There had been things under Joe that hadn't seemed right to Ace, but it’d seemed no worse than the general wrongness of the world after it’d fell, he'd seen no other path than the one that Joe laid out for them. None that lead people, starving and thirsty, into some sort of stable life, a peace that was foreign to most of the Wasteland. He’d thought the war boys to be protectors of the Citadel, and honored for it. But Joe decried a soft death even as he’d made sure the Mechanic drove them towards one. The whole thing spun his head.

Ace wished he'd thought to drop by Furiosa's quarters in the afternoon, so he'd known sooner. Would have had a few more hours to get past the shock of it. Instead, he'd found out late at night, barely slept, and had to cope with Council in the morning.

It had been… the Tribunes had been almost triumphant at this proof that Joe was as— as _evil_ as they'd been saying. "They'll have to believe us now," the sharp blonde one had said.

They’d wanted to announce it right away, from the loudspeakers, so that the entire Citadel can find out all at once.

There'd been some loud disagreements until the small pup brought by one of the breeders - by the one that had been Guzzer's favourite - woke up, then everybody had reined it in.

It’d taken some careful talking from the crew to back them down from such a rash action.

“Belief is not certain,” Kompass tried to explain, awkwardly, “You’ve done well with the rations, the stories, the pups, but something so— it will take more to convince some of the war boys.”

“But you’ve found the proof, we can just announce it!” Dag protested sharply, “What, is this because we’re women that we can’t announce it ourselves? Because we were Joe’s wives?”

“Some? But I wouldn’t even say _Ace_ should loudspeaker the news,” the war boy shrugged awkwardly, “They’re going to have to see the proof with their own eyes, have time to work the new parts into their engines.”

"And people get angry at the messenger," Ace had added. At least, that was the way it had always worked.

Her mouth opened soundlessly, and then closed for a moment, “Are you… trying to _protect_ us?”

“Trying to protect crew right? The Boss picked you to save, and to lead. War boys aren’t going to react easily to this news, it’s going to have to come from within if you don’t want them to circle the rigs on you.”

“Why is it so hard for them to _understand?!_ ” The spindly woman hissed, clearly frustrated, hand on the nearly indistinct swell of her belly, “Why are they taking so long?”

“It’s been _seventeen days_ since Joe died,” Kompass protested, “less since our first Tenday when we learned how Joe could be towards his wives, let alone—”

"Dag," the History Women had said gently. She spoke softly, but Ace had noticed everybody quietened to listen to her. "You had time and space to think about how wrong it all was, before this all happened. You had others it was safe to share your thoughts with. I helped you find words and concepts for the wrongness, gave your books to show you ways things could be better, and it still took longer than seventeen days. Everybody else is only just starting the process. It's going to take some time."

“But do we have the time?” the Tribune challenged, “They’ve lived in this Citadel, same as we all did, they have eyes, feelings. They _must_ have felt the wrongness, of being half-lived if nothing else. Are you letting them continue to drink Joe’s water?”

“We already aren’t, if you’re speakin’ literal,” Janey spoke up, “All are getting their water from the copper pipes.”

Cheedo interrupted quietly, “But the longer you keep it a secret why, the harder it is for the secret to come out without people being angry.”

“We’re not keeping it secret though,” Kompass said, frustrated at the misunderstandings, "We have enough proof now, we can call a Dispute in the Pit this afternoon."

“And it’ll be quicker than just announcing it?”

“It’d be faster in the long run, and stick better.” Ace took a breath, and then looked at the woman in curiosity, “Why you so insistent that there’s no time? Need to get this driven right, I’m thinking, not fanging it on an over-heated engine.”

He saw the rest of the Council look at her, even the Tribunes had something about the eyes that seemed concerned but also confused.

Tribune Dag dashed her eyes to the window, and curled in on herself, and between one breath and the next blurted out, “I have maybe 150 days before this sprog bursts out of me. Would rather there’d be nothing foul around for it to feed on.”

The Tribunes sucked in a surprised breath but the war boys exchanged confused glances.

Tribune Dag suddenly loomed over them, hissing her words, “If one word that I’m carrying one of Joe’s seed leaves this room…I’ll—I’ll shred you _myself_ . I will _not_ have war boys call my baby _his_ . _Do you hear me_?”

 _Joe’s seed?_ Ace blinked, he hadn’t know that any other wife had been carrying. With how Corpus stepped down, Ace was not sure that those who’d want Joe’s sons take up rule would have any traction. But he didn’t know how much of that was because Corpus might as well have been a half-life, health visibly cut short by the Wasteland’s sickness. If the Tribune’s pup was full-life...

"Yeah, of course, that would be—" Austeyr said. "Bad."

...if the pup was male and became a rallying point...

Ace grimaced and nodded. Luckily the Council had wrapped up quickly thereafter, with their communal horror over the idea of Joe’s seed re-taking root in the Citadel. They reached agreement that the war boys should be informed quickly, and got assurances that it could be handled completely by war boys in their own way.

The Tribunes, Milkers, and other women seemed surprised that they even _had_ their own ways around disagreements separate from the Imperators and Joe, which seemed odd to Ace because what group didn’t have fights within themselves? Did the women never disagree?

A squeal startled Ace from his thoughts, and he blinked at the toddler that latched onto his lower leg. It's mother following after. The pup had brown skin, dark curly hair twisted up in little knots.

"Hey," he said softly, looking from the kid to the breeder that stood watching. "Many."

"It's Marienny now."

Ace nodded. "Marienny."

She sighed and sat down next to him on the ledge, moving a little ungainly with her big belly.

“That news ya’ll brought up today,” she said softly, bleakly. "Hit me that Guzzer didn't need to die,"

"No." He could give her no more than his weary acceptance of the new information they'd been given. "He didn't."

The kid got hold of one of Ace's trouser pockets and pulled itself up, and he helped him climb onto his knee. Precocious little pup, Ace thought, would probably do well as a lancer if he kept climbing so well. He shifted a little to settle in better and the pup moved with him easily, keeping his balance.

He shouldn’t be surprised that Guzzer’s get would have all the makings of a fine war boy someday. The thought that he might actually live long enough to see that happen, startled him. Maybe even long enough to teach him and get him settled in with a good crew.

"She's his," Marienny said, nodding at the kid with a smile through the sadness.

_Oh._

The toddler squealed with laughter as she rode his knee. She had some of Guzzer's features, though her colour was the most noticeable.

Ace had thought he would have been able to tell the pups apart, those which would grow up to be breeders and those to be war boys but— But the women weren’t necessarily breeding now, right? Only if they wanted.

Ace hummed and jiggled his leg, keeping his hands near the kid so he could catch her if she should slip. Not a war boy, then. Seemed a waste. Or maybe all that was changing, too. Furiosa had… she had been stuck up there, with breeding duties, for Joe. But she’d been thrown out, and instead of being one of those who starved out there with the Wretched, or become a Milker, or folded into those Soundless as some former wives apparently had been, she had lived among the war pups before becoming war boy, and then Imperator.

He wondered how many women could have been, or wished to have been, fighting with them on behalf of the Citadel instead of what Joe had designated them to be. How many hadn't had the chance to grow into themselves, because they weren’t able to claw their way out and up as their Imperator did. Maybe they would never reach the heights that she did, but they were always short-handed in the repair bays and on the bikes, needing light-weight bikers with good reflexes.

He thought he’d like to make sure this little one had that option.

"Shoulda seen his face when he told us you'd said your new pup was definitely of his seed." He smiled a little at the memory of Guzzer's excitement after he'd heard Marienny had given birth.

"Damarwulan. I wish I could have let them meet," she sighed. "Nearly strong enough to go to the dens, now. Well, before things all changed. They say I get to keep him, now."

Ace nodded. The younger pups who could lift the wheel were spending only the daytime in what the Tribunes called 'school' instead of being taken away to the war pup dens. They'd learn what the warboys taught pups, preparation for doing war, but also history and readin', and spent the rest of the time with their mamas. There was ongoing protest among the warboys, who generally thought that if they'd had to endure something then the new ones did too, but Ace thought it was a workable plan. It would cut out a lot of the caretaking of the littlest war pups, who'd tended to cry and wail a lot in their first weeks until they learned it didn't help any.

Guzzer had liked poking the pups into giggles, or making faces at them until they forgot to be upset.

"Guzzer liked you so much.” He smiled at the kid’s cheerfulness, reminded of the look about Guzzer’s face when describing the breeder, “Had to keep an eye on him, he kept doing kamakrazee shit. Hoping Furiosa would reward him with an extra visit to you.”

She made a strangled noise and curled forward, and Ace's hand twitched toward her, a little helpless, but returning it quickly to catch the little girl as she wobbled. He'd thought she'd want to know how much she'd mattered to Guzzer, but maybe he'd just hurt her. It made his mouth tug downward despite himself.

"He was real excited you wanted pups from him," he tried. "Felt honoured."

The little girl patted at his face, and he forced a smile for her. 

“It’s good to hear him spoken of. None of the others in the court much knew him at all,” she said quietly, “Good to get to be there at Tenday and hear his name. Always felt like,” and her voice dropped to a whisper, “I was just supposed to be happy he'd gone to Valhalla. I didn't know you still thought about him too.”

"Furiosa does too, still wears his belt," Ace said. He hesitated. "You could visit her to talk?" Remembering Gale's words about letting her grieve, he thought maybe that might be good. And he thought Furiosa would enjoy meeting this little girl, too.

Marienny glanced at him. "You think she would…? I know she's been avoiding people for a bit."

Ace made a snap decision, remembering Gale’s words about having support, "Want to go now? I'll come with you, if you like."

She still hesitated.

"If she'll shout, she'll be shouting at me," he told her, with a quirk of his lips. “An’ probably she won’t, can’t know unless you go.” He didn't think Furiosa would mind the company, but Marienny only knew her as Imperator.

"Fine. Darana slept through most of the council, so she should be fine for another while."

Ace pushed to his feet, hefting the giggling toddler under his arm, and reached down to help up Marienny. 

As they walked down the hallway he heard voices behind them, coming from the council room.

"—doesn't sound like an unhappy child to me."

"—just want to make sure."

He turned around, hands circling the squealing toddler's torso as he let her 'fly' through the air, and saw Tribune Dag and one of the Milkers stare at him. Ace didn’t let it bother him much, they could look as much as they liked, Marienny was laughing and so was the girl-pup, and that was what mattered.

* * *

Marienny took a deep breath and held it, watching the Ace knock on the door of Furiosa's quarters. He looked comfortable, confident of his welcome, but she felt anything but. What if the Imperator didn't want to be bothered? She hadn't come to council, after all, had sent crew members instead.

Marienny didn't know the other woman beyond a handful of moments in the same space. She'd occasionally visited the breeder court to make sure there were no complaints about her crew, but Marienny had never actually spoken with her. The Imperator had always looked collected, calm, and distant. Not easily approachable and almost stilted when she’d seen her walk around the court.

The Ace opened the door and stuck his head in, and she could hear him exchange a few soft words with the person inside. Announcing her. It didn't sound like there was protest, so maybe Marienny was welcome after all.

The woman revealed when Ace opened the door, seemed altogether different than the remembered Imperator Furiosa. Exhausted. In many ways looking wounded which Marienny suspected the Imperator had never let herself look when Joe had been alive. Even in the breeder courts, the story grew of how Furiosa lost an arm practically stone-faced, with little more than annoyance. But she was not stone-faced now.

Her eyes drifted over Marienny and caught on Darana, burbling happily in the Ace's big arms.

Marienny sank into a careful crouch at a level with the Imperator who was sitting on her bed, “Ah, hello?”

Furiosa nodded at her in greeting, and waved a little awkward at the mattress, “Should be careful, carrying. Sit down if you like.”

It would be easier, with her belly’s current bulk. She settled a bit gingerly on the soft surface, and then turned to look at Guzzer’s Boss. Hesitated.

“Ace said… said I should come by. Chat a bit?”

The other woman made a questioning sound.

Marienny found herself at a loss of how to continue with her words. She would like to remember Guzzer with someone else but Furiosa seemed so listless that Marienny wasn’t sure that sharing her sadness was appropriate.

To Marienny's surprise the Ace settled down with them, forming a little seated circle. He set Darana on her feet, steadying her to make sure she wouldn't fall over. Furiosa's eyes caught on the toddler again with something that couldn't decide between interest and sadness.

"Guzzer?" she asked.

"My second, with him."

Furiosa's hand twitched toward Darana but dropped again.

"I miss him," she said, low and soft as if only to herself. "Guzzer." Then she made a gesture like plucking something out of the air and bringing it to her heart. Marienny stared at where her fist was cupped, and then looked up at Furiosa’s expression, blinking as if she hadn't realised what she was doing.

Marienny didn't know why, but she copied the gesture. It felt... right.

She smiled a little, hesitantly, at the Imperator. Was she overstepping? Taking something that wasn’t hers?

"He came to me," Furiosa nodded in answer, with a faint smile. "Asking me how he'd know if you liked him back."

Apparently she hadn't overstepped. Marienny blinked in surprise at the thought that Guzzer had talked about her. And not in the way war boys talked about breeders, apparently.

"What did you say?"

"I asked Ace to talk with Lizzybe first, to make sure he wasn't bothering you." She shrugged. "I know you didn't have any options - who could blame you for being sweet to a warboy if it improved your life?"

"He took such a shine to you," the Ace said, "Needed to know if it wasn't bothering you."

"She never told me," Marienny said softly, thinking it over. She was feeling all wet around the eyes. Not only knowing that Guzzer had still thought of her in the moments they weren't together, but also that these two people had been looking out for her.

"Good," said Furiosa. "I just wanted to make sure I wasn't indulging something you didn't want."

"Did he blush?" Marienny smiled through her tears. "He'd look so intimidating, and then his face would get hot."

Darana climbed into her lap, and she folded her arms around her child, rocking her softly.

"He was.. different, when he was thinking about you. I could always tell."

"Started talking about the next run, too," Ace added, absently wiggling his fingers at Darana so she could try to grab them from where she sat. "Always looking forward to the next moment that might get us sent to the Court, so he could see you."

Marienny felt her stomach swoop, and her eyes spilled over anew. To only get this now, this steady sureness that she'd been as important to him as he'd been to her. To only get this years after he'd gone to Valhalla.

Furiosa looked away, giving her a moment. She went over to a metal chest and unlocked it, rummaged inside for a moment. Came up with a weathered leather belt.

"Here. I think he'd have wanted to give you one if wearing one would not have…" Furiosa gestured vaguely. Wearing such a clear sign of favour from a warboy would have made Marienny's life difficult, made her something to be jealous over when she was supposed to be shared. "Should be alright now, though. I’ve got my crew keeping an eye on them."

Marienny clutched at the belt with an intensity that surprised herself. It surprised her all over again the idea that they could choose not to, now. That she wouldn’t have to be shared. That, had Guzzer still been alive right now she could just have him alone and as much time as they both might wish. Her eyes leaked over and she dashed her hand against them, laughing at herself but also upset. “Look at me, watering like this. Should know better.”

A hand landed on her knee, and she looked up to see the other woman, eyes wet as well.

“Shouldn’t get addicted,” Marienny reminded them both.

“Joe’s gone,” Furiosa almost whispered, “enough to go around now.” She offered a flask of Aqua Cola.

“ ‘Sides, what Gale says?” Ace hummed, “could use letting the water run long as it needs.”

Marienny laughed at that through her tears because she didn’t know how to react. Was there really time and space to do this now? To grieve? She knew that the war boys had always had a public space set aside for things such as that (though was it really grieving?) but the women had always been locked away, sometimes even unsure whether it was allowed to show such things to each other, and thus increase each other’s sadness. It’s not like they all didn’t have stories of hurts.

There was so much pain to go around, pain about things they weren't supposed to feel pain about - wasn't their whole purpose to make pups to serve the Immortan? How could they feel upset when war boys appreciated them? How could they feel conflicted when they were bred? How could they feel sad when a healthy son went on to become a warpup, exactly as the Immortan intended? How could they feel anger or pain when a son was taken for the Tenday ceremony and did not return? It was something to celebrate when they could lift the Great Wheel and were taken straight to the Dens.

Yet it had never felt that way. Breeders hugged their sons and swallowed back their tears when the Warboys came to take them to Tenday. Every time knowing their might never see them again, never even recognise them if they somehow did happen to catch a glimpse of the pups. Knowing that their sons would forget their names.

Darana made a questioning gurgle and Marienny ducked her head down, cuddling her close. She was not sure which of them she was comforting.

 _But there's less to feel sad about now, isn't there?_ She thought, looking up, “I want to thank you again, for letting us keep our pups with us now. It does us good to be able to keep their hearts with us instead of having them be all swallowed up with everyone else.”

“I didn’t,” the Imperator looked awkward, maybe even a little small, shoulders stiff, “come up with that, it was the Tribunes. Not me.”

Marienny leaned forward carefully balancing the toddler, surprised, “If it weren’t for you, they wouldn’t have the standing they do. The safety to say their piece. Last time you holed up like this you came out with a chrome arm, or so the war boys say, more vicious than before.” She wanted to reach out to give some gesture of comfort but wasn’t sure if it was her place.

“The Citadel isn’t listening to the Tribunes? the Vuvalini?”

“Not so much as all that, but we all know that your gunhand is behind their words.”

"I hope that you'll teach our sons that their lives matter, not just their deaths."

"I don't have that much influence on the warboys."

Marienny and Ace both stared at her.

"Boss, we didn't know how to be crew until you taught us," Ace said.

"You were Xe’s crew," Furiosa said, puzzled.

"Maybe we was a crew, but we weren't a _crew_ ," he said with an emphasis he seemed to think clarified everything. Marienny bounced Darana absently as she tried to follow. Furiosa's lip twitched up in amusement.

“Do you remember that first run?” the war boy said, “Where almost all of them went out, tryin’ to be chrome?”

"I saw them fall. Wondered if I was going to have to get the Rig back on my own."

“Thought I was _rust_ for asking for yer crossbow instead of leaping onto the Buzzard rig and fireball that whole line trailing on that flank.”

Marienny saw the confused expression on Furiosa’s face from the corner of her eye. She herself was staring at Ace too, never knowing this story and never hearing any story of a war boy avoiding Valhalla. It made sense with Ace bein' so old, but...

"You… thought that's what I wanted?"

"Imperator Xe would have—"

Furiosa just huffed, “From what I could see, that man preferred to sit in the back of the cabin, wasting bullets.”

“Ain’t wrong about that,” Ace conceded, “And his crews tended to… waste lances too.”

“And themselves, isn’t that right?” Marienny thought about the high turnover with Xe, who’d seemed to have new crew come back with every run, and never very many. She hadn't been with the breeders for long before Furiosa took over, but she remembered that.

"You taught us how to make ourselves count." Ace pressed, “do you think any other Rig has cranes like ours did? That anybody ever thought to rescue warboys from outriding vehicles? We saw you spend all that time on modifying it, adding the bug up top for something to duck behind."

“Defense,” Furiosa elaborated, even though Ace only looked at her like that word was strange.

"I wouldn't have met Guzzer maybe more'n twice, before you got the War Rig. None of the other boys we saw lasted more than a few moons. You made him stick around." Marienny cast her eyes to the side, “truthfully I’d hoped to see him around for longer but, y’get what you can, right?”

She startled when Furiosa's hand rested on her forearm.

"I'm sorry." The Imperator said. “And I’m sorry I didn’t realize sooner,” she addressed this to Ace.

Ace waved her apology off, “Don’t have to realize it, you’ve done it anyway. What I’m sayin’ is that you’ve made us strong; a strong crew. And don’t think that people haven’t noticed.”

There was a urgent knocking on the door.

Their heads darted up but it was already opening. Ace shot to his feet, Furiosa following a little slower. Marienny protectively hugged her daughter closer.

"Furiosa, you have to come!" it was the youngest Tribune, the one with the dark hair. "The Warboys are killing each other!"

The Imperator turned to Marienny and helped her up.

"I'll go back to the court and bar us in," Marienny said, hefting Darama onto her hip.

"Gilly went up to make sure the Milking Mothers are barricaded too," the Tribune said breathlessly.

"One of us will come by when it’s safe," Furiosa promised.

* * *

* * *

The shouting and screaming echoed between the walls in the lower Citadel and rose up to meet them as they hurried down the hallways. Cheedo found herself glad Furiosa and Ace were flanking her. They could handle anything, surely? Even Warboys tearing each other apart.

The sounds only got louder once they entered the large cavern where the Pit existed, the sound bouncing along the walls not much muffled by the sand that had been spread across the large circle in the middle. It was currently almost filled with painted bodies, the fullest that she’s ever seen it, but this was not sparring or sport, with warboys sitting in concentric circles watching maybe one or two pairs of combatants in the center. No, to Cheedo’s eyes it looked like an outright free-for-all brawl, an unmitigated War.

She gasped when she recognised Oti in there, and she knew Oti, knew that he was— that he was careful and maybe even sensible, if such a word could be applied to a Warboy. Right now he was grabbing onto another warboy and shouting something Cheedo couldn't make out, and he followed it up with a headbutt to the other man's nose. Cheedo tried to hold back her dismayed cry as blood began to flow. It wasn’t the only blood being splattered about in the room and Oti’s opponent shouted and pushed back, exchanging strikes with Oti until the both of them disappeared into the crowd.

Two war boys hurtled themselves past Cheedo, punching, nearly bowling into her before Ace yanked her out of the way.

"THAT'S NOT WHAT IT SAYS! IT _CAN'T_!"

" _FIGHT_ ME!"

“Do you see what I mean?” Cheedo shouted, turning to Furiosa, who was looking over the room with a placid air. Was she still in that low state she’d been in for days? Didn’t she care at all that they were killing each other? There was blood _everywhere_.

Furiosa suddenly squatted to her confusion and started scanning the ground and Ace mimicked her, looking at the half of the room the Imperator wasn’t surveying.

“Don’t see anyone being trampled, you?”

“Nah, looks clear.” Ace agreed, rising.

Cheedo suddenly realized that Ace was also looking calm. She looked back and forth from the fighting, back to their faces, “What are you saying, why aren’t you worried?”

“They’re congressing? We told you about this in Council.” Ace shrugged, “That the issue with the lead’ll be brought up with the other war boys.”

“War boys congress when there’s a bigger dispute,” Furiosa nodded slowly, leaning against a wall, “Think last time one this large happened was over seating in the mess hall.”

“Yeah.” Ace agreed with a toothy grin, “We won that one.”

Then he seemed to sober. "Was much bigger, too. Not so many war boys left now."

“But this is just... I thought in Council you talked like you wanted it settled peacefully! You talked about preventing a fight!”

“With the Tribunes,” Ace said. “A fight with the _Tribunes_.”

“How does that—”

“Look, war boys will scrap. Things get settled that way, with fights, like release valves. No resentment after. You win fair and square, it's sorted out. If it’s just words, there’s no end to it.”

“And they _kill_ each other to settle things?” Cheedo demanded.

“Do you see anyone actually dying?” Furiosa asked patiently. “They’ll shove and shout at each other until their opinions are sorted out and then they’ll group on either side of the Dispute. The side with more will win any fight over the Dispute against the side with less.”

On the far side of the seething mass of bodies was a small clump of Warboys standing in the light of one of the air channels, and Cheedo recognised Kompass, bent over a book with another. They were arguing too, and loudly, but holding the book with the care it deserved was apparently stopping it from turning into a full on fight.

Occasionally one of the group would turn to the crowd and shout something, hard to hear over the din, but sounding like it was cited from what they were reading there. Now that Cheedo was in the room for a little longer she started to realized that a lot of the shouting was various war boys repeating the words for others in the back. Austeyr was off to one side trading heated words with various war boys that would split off and either get into fights themselves or go off to shout at others. Furiosa’s definition of ‘shove and shout’ otherwise seemed to involve a lot of blood, and she has the faint hope (but not much faith) that they were mostly bloody noses.

“So… they don’t actually fight after they’re all sorted into two sides?” Cheedo asked hopefully.

“Oh still they do.” Ace shrugged, “Though the winning side tends to let the losing beat on them some until they get over it.”

“Some?”

“Well, they’ll walk away.”

Cheedo backed away from Ace a little, giving him a narrow eyed look.

"You did not tell— I didn’t think it would look anything like—"

"HE DID _NOT!_ DADDY LOVED US!" a warboy suddenly bellowed right behind her, and Cheedo startled, losing her balance as a large warboy shoved past her.

Cheedo screamed as she fell down the ledge, trying to curl up into a ball and already seeing herself at the receiving end of kicks and punches. She landed hard and rolled, a rock in the sand scraping her cheek, and cried out, trying to brace for the pain of being trampled.

"ere, you okay, Tribune?"

She yelped when a large Warboy pushed his face close to hers. He had blood on his teeth. "Prob'ly best not to be in 'ere. Warboy brangling, right?"

She wanted to snap that it hadn't exactly been her choice, butwhen she looked beyond him, another warboy was standing with his back to her and his arms spread, blocking the mass of bodies from where she was on the ground.

“Don’t think there’s sand in th’ cut. Should be ok.” He held his hand out for her.

Maybe there were saner places in the Wasteland but for now, this was all they had.

Cheedo took his hand and he lifted her to her feet then steered her toward where Furiosa and Ace were making their way to her.

The two war boys nodded at her, at the Imperators, and then stepped a bit away. Then immediately resumed brawling again.

“Come on, you should get that cleaned out,” Furiosa said, ignoring the shouting, leading her out of the room. She turned back over her shoulder, “Ace?”

The new Imperator was looking over his shoulder, “This is gonna be strange, innit. Not being in there anymore.”

“Soon your ace is going to start barring you from the Pit, you know.” Furiosa said teasingly.

“Never quite said it was going to be this...”

“Hard?” Cheedo guessed.

“Unsatisfying?” Furiosa tried.

“... _Annoying._ ” Ace grumped, fingers twitching. He shook his head, mouth slanted long and thin.

"Come on.” Furiosa said with a smile in her tone, “We are going to trust that Kompass and Oti will sort this out."

Ace huffed, and followed them.

Cheedo hid a smile at the large man's grumpiness as she gingerly touched the cut on her face. She hoped that the other women wouldn't get too alarmed by it; her sisters had taken up defensive positions, spreading the Vuvalini across the several locations with the breeders and milkers. The Soundless had vanished after a brief, bitter fight between Feng and Miss Giddy about if the latter should come with them or stay with the Tribunes. Miss Giddy had stayed, and perhaps it had been Cheedo's imagination, because the Soundless' face did not give much away, but she thought Feng had looked.. hurt.

They’d thought to brace for a revolution, thought that it was the starting signs of rebellion or a coup.

She’s not sure how they’d react to knowing that it was simply the war boy’s idea of _politics_.

* * *

Furiosa had stayed in her quarters for days, listless and sleeping, seemingly uninterested in the Citadel. Kompass had been relieved when she got involved with reading the evidence about the lead, but he hadn't realised she'd actually gotten up and outside.

“What, she went down to the Pit?” Kompass stared at the youngest Tribune in surprise. They’d been trying to have regular meetups every day to compare notes on things they should keep an eye on, which Kompass had insisted on ever since the trouble with Lance went down. It’d been a relief to find a Tribune who’d been keen to hear out war boys with neither getting angry about everything she heard nor being overly forgiving over concerns; one who had a sort of mind to be suited to Roving and protecting from the shadows. She seemed cautious for the most part, which increased his surprise that she'd gone to grab the Boss to help.

“With Ace, yes. Everyone was… busy.” Cheedo said, scratching absently at a shallow cut on her face. “You were conversing with another war boy over papers and I didn’t want to, um, interrupt.”

When he raised a Dispute in the Pit against Joe, everyone had frozen. Disputes against a group or a situation had happened sometimes, like the one they’d had over rations or seating arrangements, but those were rare. Usually it’d be one war boy against another, them gathering those who would fight for a side and then the sides setting on each other. They’d never had a direct dispute with someone so far over their rank, let alone somebody who was already dead.

It was like having a dispute against an idea. The idea that Joe had loved them as he'd always claimed to. And at first some had even laughed that he could dispute such a thing, when he’d called out his grievance.

But then he’d followed by reading out-loud some sections of the Organic Mechanic’s journal and then the uproar started, even as some started running down the halls calling for congress at the Pit. When there were disbelieving shouts calling him a liar, Kompass had invited Warboys to come up and read aloud the evidence for themselves. Austeyr had himself started working the crowd, knowing he was magnetic.

Every warboy had a vote, but some counted for more than that because they tended to draw in other warboys. The Ace, before he'd had his promotion, had been the most magnetic - warboys who didn't know how they felt, tended to trust in his opinion and side with him.

There were also always some warboys who were anti-magnetic. There'd been the one warboy who had been so consistently the death to any dispute, because nobody wanted to be on his side, that it had become routine to keep him out of them, much to his displeasure. Apparently he'd died ruining the Wastelander's chrome car.

 _Asshole._ He thought. _Go to Valhalla all you like, but to take a V8 with you?_

Only an Imperator should have that honor.

Kompass was nevertheless glad that war boy left for the gates, he had never seemed particularly reverent of Joe and they didn’t need him siding with them on this. The crowd that Austeyr had attempted to work had quickly swelled as War boys came from the other parts of the Citadel and Kompass had lost track of Austeyr.

So many congressed that it was no wonder that he’d never even caught sight of when the Boss and Ace visited, with Tribune Cheedo.

 _It was good,_ he thought, _that the Boss’d left her room._ Maybe he could convince her to go out and visit somewhere else tomorrow, get her moving more again once she’d rested? She seemed to have gone quiet and tired again and perhaps even wiped out. The Dispute was still ongoing, though it was more about what they should do now. Everyone had agreed to break for meals and rest and to patch up a bit.

Some war boys had even braved tiptoeing into the Infirmary but it for some reason it was empty.

_Odd._

They’d shrugged and looked at the Soundless’ supplies a little uneasily and decided it could wait until later.


	35. Avalanche

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Avalanche (ˈavəlɑːnʃ/)  
> 1\. a mass of snow, ice, and rocks falling rapidly down a mountainside.  
> 2\. a sudden arrival or occurrence of something in overwhelming quantities.
> 
> _There was a sudden, loud crack against the mouth of the room, the window in the stone to the outside, and everyone jumped as the sound of breaking stone boomed around the space._

Hands. Touching his face. Max tried to brace himself for this familiar nightmare when it slowly dawned on him that it wasn't the same one. The hands weren't grabbing, just touching lightly, patting almost, and he felt like there should be panic, there was usually panic at this point, but he was warm and comfortable and…. safe?

The sound of heavy breathing and soft moans was all around him, and when he shifted there was a body in front of him, warm and lean and solid. Max mindlessly rolled his hips, finding friction that made his breathing pick up. There were hums of approval and the hands on his face slid through his hair, scratching lightly. Max found himself arching into the touch a little, and a body behind him spooned in closer, a warm line all along his back and legs. 

This should have been alarming, but Max found himself humming with approval, the touches seeming to repair some kind of damage he hadn't known he'd had. Folding him back into his skin.

It’d felt like a trespass to feel so safe in something so dangerous as touch, it felt like a guilty kink. Hands, they were usually… usually dangerous, and to just  _ let  _ them near like this and to  _ know  _ that no harm was coming...

He felt a long-fingered hand rest lightly on his cheek. Furiosa. He rubbed his bristly cheek against her palm and heard her chuckle. “It’s okay, let yourself.”

He couldn't remember when he'd last felt anything like this. Years, maybe, since that foggy time when he’d had a wife. When his body sought out the feeling of another nearby, when his arms folded themselves around the waist in front of him almost without his input as if they belonged there, and his hips moved against skin with lazy sleepy delight.

Somebody breathed warm and damp on the back of his neck, and a shiver went through him. He wanted that mouth to land where it hovered near. He wanted to tangle in close. He wanted to reach down because he knew that he’d find a handful of cock and he knew just what to do with it to make the other man whine into his grip. Somewhere, he knew exactly who this was, had already admitted it to himself, had already imagined what he would sound like. (Knew that he didn’t need to imagine because he’d already  _ heard _ .)

The mouth pressed a low groan to his neck, and then the touch started to fade, the bodies moving away from around him. He moaned unhappily, felt the sound vibrate in his throat. 

Woke up, his hips still rocking into empty air. 

"....fuck."

Before he could think about it too much he slid his hand over his pants, cupping himself where he was achingly hard and leaking. Allowed his hips to continue rocking. Tried to recapture the sensations of the dream. It had been vivid, and the memory of seeing Furiosa and her crew sleepily grind off against each other probably wouldn't ever leave him. It didn't take much, to get there. The memory of their sounds, the half-there glances he’d caught in the dim room, and everything in between that his imagination filled in.

The ‘what if’ had chased him; the possibility of him having slipped from his cushion and joined them. The possibility that they would have found space for him. That he could have been part of it. 

It’d chased him away into the Wasteland.

He was not yet sure what had dragged him back.

* * *

Council the next morning was full of uneasy faces, people still a little nervous from the uproar the day before. The news had come up by late afternoon that there was nothing to worry about and no reason to stay locked in, but the breeders hadn't risked unbarring their door until this morning, when Janey and Cheedo had gone on a long walk around the Citadel. Finding everything including the Warboy barracks calm, they'd gone by the breeders quarters to reassure them there was no danger. 

"So it's settled now?" one of the Milking Mothers asked Janey as the council members settled. 

"Far as I can tell it mostly is," she nodded. 

"I don't think it ever was a revolution as we feared," Cheedo said. "It mostly looked like they were working out how to… well, how to feel about Joe?"

"Huh."

“Austeyr did try to break his knuckles against the wall when he first found out,” Toast mentioned.

There was a sudden, loud crack against the mouth of the room, the window in the stone to the outside, and everyone jumped as the sound of breaking stone boomed around the space.

“An attack?!” All the Vuvalini took up arms and everybody rose from their seats. Was it too soon to think there’d be no revolution?

The grinding scream of rolling rocks followed, and Janey cautiously walked to the balcony, her rifle raised. It sounded like there were people climbing around on the rock face, and she had a sudden, vivid nightmare of some unforeseen second war party having made its way there during the night. 

She found an angle that allowed her to view outside without being too close, and just then there was another crashing boom, followed by more falling rocks. 

“ ‘Ey!” a grey painted head popped itself upside down into the window, “Just gotta be here, won't be a minute."

He blinked at the raised weapons when he'd climbed inside, but seemed to ignore them. He took several long metal poles that’ve been strapped to his back and angled them against the protruding rocks that formed the upper teeth of the skull emblem, kicking the bottom of the poles until they were wedged tightly. Then he hammered in some metal wedges close to the ceiling, above the poles. 

"Might not wanna stand too close,” he suggested. The moment they took a step back, he yelled, “ALLS CLEAR!”

There was a hammerblow outside, and an entire upper tooth of the stone skull window fell right off, pushed outward by its pole and crashing its way downward, the metal pole clattering noisily to the balcony floor. Outside there was cheering. Then another hammerblow, and the next tooth fell, and again, until they were all gone. 

Janey blinked in the sudden extra light that fell into the room. 

"So... we're not about to be overrun? We're safe?" 

The war boy blinked at them. Janey thought his name was Valve, one of those Ace picked for his team. “Overrun?” he asked.

“Well what's all that noise about?” Tribune Dag asked, waving outside.

Valve made a frustrated tch sound against his teeth, "Some of us felt it was time to express our…" he paused, as if trying to remember somebody else's words, " _ righteous anger _ . With the Immortan traitoring us."

They all took a breath at that, looking at each other; Joe’s awfulness was something that they’d hoped to someday have the war boys realize, and they’d thought that the lead in the water would prove it to them but— 

“So then you’re…?” 

“ Rearranging his  _ face _ .” The war boy said sullenly, as if he expected to be made to stop.

— but they didn’t expect that the war boys would take it upon  _ themselves _ to deface the skull sigil. There were tentative plans to order the skull be defaced, once the new sigil was introduced. But it had been low priority, and they’d expected resistance.

"Oh, that’s all right then,” Cheedo chirruped and the war boy perked up at that, “Though I hope you’ve been careful?" 

"Yeah, we sent people down t’ make sure the ground’s clear for the falling rocks." He scratched at the back his neck, “should just be the small stuff now. Detail work.” Valve stood up straight, and nodded formally, “Tribunes. Elders. I’ll be off to oversee the rest.” 

And then swung himself out the opening again.

“ ‘Detail work’.” Capable murmured, then raised a hand to her neck too. She turned swiftly and started to walk out the room. “Cheedo, send the pups to scout, send any war boys to the infirmary who’s bleeding. And if they won’t go there, let me know so I can go to them.”

“What…”

“ The  _ brands _ .”

Toast caught up to her, “I’m going with you.”

Capable just nodded, a relieved smiled, and they hurried out the door.

Janey turned from that and looked over at the balcony again, Dag was already craned outwards with her hands braced on the balcony’s edge looking up and to the sides.

“They’re like ants, smashing his face up,” she murmured with an singsong tone. “Crawling all over it and chip-chipping it away.”

"They're making a lot of noise." Britt grumped, but had a bit of a smile.

"Seems to be making them feel better though." Janey said, “And it weren’t nothing we don’t want anyway.”

“What’s that?” Kompass asked as he came in. He had a fat lip and had applied fresh clay this morning, something Janey knew he didn't normally do until he had to go outside. It was presumably hiding bruising, or maybe he’d planned on going out to have a whack at Joe’s face as well. "They giving you trouble? Told them to be careful if they were gonna go smash things up, what with you all taking your early meal here."

"No, it's fine. Just surprised us."

"Right. Came here to ask,” Kompass said, “Miss Gale, think it's a good idea if I try an get Boss up to the terraces? Get a bit of sun?”

"If she'll go, I think that would be wonderful," Gale said. 

“Think she might? Seemed determined to, last time when we were all going stir-crazy.” What was unsaid was that a lot had changed since then. Janey could see the uncertainty on the war boy’s face; all of her boys looking so concerned this past while over Furiosa’s heartsick. 

"Don't force her, but I think you boys know best how to encourage her to go."

He blinked at the idea that she considered him and the others the ones who'd know best about Furiosa. 

"Did she seem to like it once she got there that time?”

"Wanted to go her own self, even though we didn't think she should be walkin' yet. Got it in her stubborn head and just went. An’ now all we want is for her to do just that."

The war boy looked so tragically frustrated at the irony of it all, that Janey wanted to smile. “How did it even happen anyway?”

* * *

It’d been just before the siege, the day that had ended in storytelling in the Altar room. 

_ "I want to go up to the Green." _

_ They gave her startled looks. It was a lot of steps up to the green. They thought. None of them had ever been up there for longer than to haul produce back down; to work out logistics the greenthumbs had met them elsewhere. _

_ "Here Boss, why'd you want to go and do that? You gonna become a greenthumb now you don't have a War Rig?" Austeyr said, waiting for her to laugh and say she was joking. Warboys didn't go up to the Green - that was only for people who'd been declared unfit for War, destined to get shamefully green fingers and live and die soft. _

_ "I want to go," she repeated, pushing herself up against the wall. "Gale says it's fine." _

_ Austeyr looked at Kompass for help, but Furiosa was already on her feet and they found themselves going with her - it was that or let her go on her own, and that wasn't happening. _

_ "Go get Ace," Kompass tasked Rachet. Ace had been up there for the lookout posts, he'd be able to talk her out of this.  _

_ Austeyr walked at her side, throwing her concerned looks, and she grabbed hold of his forearm to steady herself. Her injuries were healing, but walking around still took a lot out of her, and she'd already been up to council that morning. She was sweating, her breathing deliberately slow, as if forcing her body to comply, and they hadn't even reached any steps yet. _

_ "Heyyy, what are you up to?" _

_ Her head shot up, and they saw the Wastelander walk up to them, dusty and a little ragged. Rachet was behind him.  _

_ "I can't find Ace," he said, "but—" he indicated the Wastelander.  _

_ Kompass let out a breath in relief to see the man. He'd given the Boss blood, so he must want her to be well. He wouldn't let her go up to the Green, would he? And things seemed to go easier when he was there. The man had a way of speaking to the Boss none of them understood, soft, but that would make her smile even when he was saying things she didn't like. _

_ Furiosa was supposed to be resting and gaining strength, Kompass thought, not subject herself to a place where there’s nothing but weak things. This wastelander had survived, maybe even flourished, out in that waterless forever and managed to come out of many thousand days of it with all limbs attached, sorta, if you don’t count his head; he was strong enough to help their Imperator fight through three war parties, so he should know what would get a person strong. Kompass waited for the other man to cut off her train of thought and steer her back to bed. _

_ "Max," Furiosa rasped, breath coming harsh. When the man stepped closer, she gave him a long look, and he paused. Made a questioning sound.  _

_ After a long moment she nodded slightly.  _

_ "Going up to..." she gestured forward and up, "...the Green." _

_ "Mm. Sounds nice." _

_ What? Did they mishear? He’s… he’s  _ _**encouraging** _ _ this? The Warboys gave each other irritated looks while the Wastelander edged in on her other side. That was not— perhaps the man was more addled than they even realized. Boss did call him Fool... _

_ "Want, um," he reached out a tentative hand toward her elbow, lowered his near shoulder a little. "Mm?"  _

_ Furiosa reached out and put her hand on his shoulder, seeking support, and he fell in at her side.  _

_ "Tell me when, you get, ah," he gestured vaguely. "I'll, I’ll carry you. Yeah?" _

_ She leaned some of her weight on his shoulder in answer and moved determinedly forward, Austeyr giving Kompass panicked looks while still supporting her other side, while Rachet and him helplessly trailed in their wake. _

_ She made it about two thirds up the steps before the breaks to catch her breath seemed to stretch longer and longer, and Kompass hoped that might mean she'd turn back, but she finally squeezed Max's shoulder and gave him a look that on anybody else might have been called pleading. _

_ A little smile curled the man's lips. "All right, huh?" _

_ He turned his back on her and crouched down, and she looked confused for a moment but then leaned forward against his back, hooking her arms over his shoulders. Austeyr automatically reached to steady them both while Max put his hands under her knees. He rose to his feet with a clicking sound from his knee and a pained grunt. _

_ "Could've let one of us—" Kompass gestured. Both he and Austeyr could carry the Boss with ease. Rachet could manage if needed. Plus, if she had climbed on one of their backs, they could have carried her back to her quarters easily.  _

_ "Hm, too late now," Max grunted, and began to walk up the steps. _

_ By the time they got to where the air was damp and strange-smelling, Furiosa had her chin hooked over Max's shoulder, and the man's forehead was beaded with sweat. Rachet walked ahead, like a new-weaned pup who hadn't yet learned the way of things, apparently forgetting that the Green was for living soft, looking around with interest. Kompass grit his teeth, wanting to pull the younger crew back, show too much interest and they’ll never let him escape; even if he goes back to being crew after, people will talk, say he’s carrying green under his nails, and say he’s unfit for War.  _

_ They emerged up into rows of tall plants, the sand here strangely brown and clumpy, nothing like they were used to. It was damp, water trickling from hoses with tiny holes in them. There was light, but even that felt softened somehow, nothing at all like the way sun crashed down in the wastes or struck against the Citadel’s sides in the dawns and dusks. The air itself felt liquid, and easy, not scratching against the throat and lungs at all like proper air did.  _

_ Kompass, Austeyr and Rachet stood and stared. They had tended to hanging gardens, little ledges on the cliff-sides where a few meagre plants could just about collect enough water. They had never seen this. Or smelled this. A little further away where huge plants, tall enough to walk under, and a couple of Greenthumbs were occupied with cutting little bits off of them. _

_ "Imagine doing that instead of war," said Austeyr, the wonder in his voice twisted into disparagement. _

_ "Yeah, imagine," Kompass scoffed. He looked away from them. _

_ Max had carried Furiosa further onto the green, to a patch with short greens sprouted like fuzz on the floor, and he walked onto it. Austeyr hurried forward to help him put down the Boss, steadying them both. She let herself sink down onto the green with a soft sound of relief. Max did the same. _

_ Austeyr looked uncertainly at the stuff under his boots. "We're not.. ruining it?" they might have had disdain for Greenthumbs, but they knew not to ruin trade goods. They were literally sitting on the wealth of the Citadel, what they’d fought sieges to protect, what so many War Boys had died to keep safe. He reached out tentatively and ran his fingers through it, feeling hunted and awkward as Kompass stared wounds into the back of his head.  _

_ "It's grass," Max said. "It'll be," he gestured vaguely. "Be OK." _

_ Austeyr had never seen grass before today. _

_ Furiosa was plucking at the buckles of her boots, and after long moments of fumbling, finally managed to kick them off her feet, rooting her toes into the little plants. _

_ Kompass stood by uncertainly, not clear on what he was supposed to do here. He felt completely out of place, like if he moved wrong then he’d bruise some piece of green and he’d get them all kicked out. Then he remembered that their Imperator hadn't asked them to come; they'd decided that themselves, so she wasn't exactly responsible for keeping them occupied. Maybe he should leave, the back of his neck itched, but. _

_ Austeyr had already settled down next to Max, examining the green wonderingly. _

“ _Grass,” Max was explaining in a soft voice. He stretched out the leg with the brace on and massaged it. “It's meant to, ah, cover the ground. Used to be they grew it special to, mm, to play games on.”_

“ _We had a field of it, in the Green Place” Furiosa said softly to the sky over head. She'd laid back, knees drawn up so her bare footsoles were nestled in the plants. All four of them came to attention at this bit of rare information. Janey had told them a little about the Green Place, but Furiosa never spoke of it; perhaps still too raw with the knowledge that it no longer existed._

“ _It was like a...” she trailed off, went silent for long minutes, staring up at the sky, blinking now and then. “Like a village 'park,' Katee said,” she finished finally._

_ A park? Isn’t that a place to put cars? And why did that name sound familiar? _

_ Max made a soft sound of acknowledgement and she sighed like just those few words had exhausted her. _

_ Kompass met Austeyr's eyes and mouthed “Katee?” because when had he heard that before? Aus widened his eyes and mouthed “Nightmares.” _

_ And oh, V8, that was it – the Boss had very rarely had loud nightmares in the time he'd known her, usually managed to wake herself before it came to that point, but the few times she'd had them Kompass remembered hearing that name. 'Katee, help me'. He'd thought maybe it was one of the other former wives, somebody the Boss had appealed to when she had been thrown out of the vault. _

_ Austeyr watched Furiosa's toes curl lazily into the grass. It was a strange thing to do, but she seemed to enjoy the feeling, and it was making him curious. After a lengthy inner debate on if he should really be curious about something so soft, he decided that if the Boss was doing it, it couldn't be completely soft, and began to take off his own boots. _

“ _Ach, don't do that, you'll kill the plants,” Kompass groused_

“ _I'll kill you, boofhead,” Austeyr shot back, throwing an – admittedly not too clean – sock at the other Warboy._

_ Kompass roared a challenge and pounced, rolling Austeyr away from the Boss and Max and getting him in a control hold. _

_ Max looked alarmed, but Furiosa just waved a lazy hand and said languidly “Don't break each other, boys.” _

That had almost been a simpler time, despite the weight of the incoming war parties hanging over their heads. It’d seemed like it’d helped boost the Boss’ energy, getting her on her feet again, allowing her to heal fast enough to take up her post in the Citadel defence. 

Kompass made his way back to Furiosa's quarters, running into Austeyr in the hallway. 

"Miss Gale says yes," Kompass informed the other warboy.

"Oh good," Austeyr said. "The one breeder visited yesterday, the one Guzzer used to be stuck on, and she's back to starin' at the wall and bein' all quiet."

"I have an idea."

"Hey Boss," Kompass said, leaning around the door, trying to catch her gaze. She had her back to the door. "Want to go up to the green this afternoon?"

She didn't look back, shrugging listlessly. 

"See, we all got some projects to work on, would be nice to be in the light, got some detail-work planned.”

Her shoulders shrugged again, but she turned her head slightly, and he thought there was a little interest there. They hadn't shown her their projects yet. Hadn't exactly hidden them, they were in crates along the wall, but just she hadn't shown any interest. 

“Yeah, those wires aren’t gonna connect themselves.” Austeyr tempted, concern on his face.

“Hmph! I’ll just go up myself, bet I can make it myself, extra shine.” Rachet harrumped, and picked up the crate with his project and spare parts. He started making for the door.

“ Hey wait! What are you, that’s not the poi—” Austeyr turned to follow and then looked at Rachet’s face, words slowing, “What… are you even saying. Of course you can’t. You know what! I bet I can make a better arm,  _ myself _ .”

Furiosa turned a little, eyes to the ceiling, as if trying to hear the conversation better. 

“I’m already making one though!”

“Don’t mean she can’t have two arms. Your’s will be the spare.”

“Mine will be better!”

Austeyr said, incredibly transparent but no less effective for it, “Well, we can see about that once we're up there, working on ‘em, right?”

They kept arguing as they slowly headed down the hall, and Furiosa twisted a little, as if tilting her head to catch their fading words. 

“ Tch, now I’m gonna have to follow t’make sure they don’t blow themselves up,” Kompass sighed, hiding his grin, because it was  _ working _ . 

“...what.” Furiosa said, and turned over on the mattress just in time around to see Kompass carrying his crate of scrap and material and— 

explosives.

* * *

_ What _ .


	36. Summit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Summit [ˈsʌmɪt/] noun_  
>  1\. The highest point of a hill or mountain. The highest attainable level of achievement.  
> 2\. A meeting between heads of government.  
>   
> Kompass was waiting for her outside the door of her quarters, and she grumbled at how predictable she apparently was, falling for their baiting. Pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders. At least he had the good grace not to look triumphant.

By the fifth day her body didn't feel so heavy anymore, though the thought of getting up - to do _what_ , exactly? Check in on things? Find out how the Citadel was doing? Attend Council? Did any of those things really _need_ anything from her? - still tired her.

Her crew had been careful of her, giving her space even though they didn't quite understand that she wasn't sick. They'd chatted and quietly worked on projects - including her arm - and played games, and she was surprised to find she didn't resent it at all.

She was glad they'd come to her with the papers they'd struggled with, even though knowing what Joe had done lay heavy on her chest. As if everything else hadn't been enough, Joe had actively poisoned the warboys, and she felt like she should have _known_ that. Now she'd read about it, the dim memory of lead being dangerous rang with childhood echoes. She had heard that before, just… hadn't connected it to the big celebration of Joe's special water system for the warboys.

But it still didn’t much compel her to do anything; except feel pride at the way they were handling things for themselves.

She was glad Ace had brought Marienny around to talk, yesterday. It had done her good to speak of Guzzer, even though there was so much pain wrapped up in knowing his death had been utterly pointless, that his life could have been so much more. That he could have been here, with the woman who still missed him, perhaps could have found a way to be some kind of father to the little girl that looked so much like him.

It was all such a _waste_ , and every time she thought about it she got angry and sad all over again in new ways.

After they'd come back to her quarters after the Dispute, Ace had stayed and they'd ended up talking about Sprocket. About how Ace had taken the slight Warboy under his protection until it had become clear that wasn't needed, but they'd always remained friends. About how Sprocket had been the first to make Furiosa want to be touched, and about how he'd explained to the other Warboys how to do it, how to make her feel good.

She'd laughed, not having known about the instructions, about Sprocket's advice to try things with the breeders, to practice before they did something with her. Then she'd cried, because Sprocket was gone and he could have been here, _should_ have been here in this new Citadel.

Ace had wrapped her in his arms and not said anything when she'd made his shoulder wet with tears. If she'd thought maybe the top of her head felt a little damp where he pressed his face to it, she certainly would never mention it. 

She was still so tired. Everything seemed like too much and not enough all at once, and all she wanted was to stay in her bed and let it wash over her.

However now they were apparently going to blow themselves up. Furiosa _knew_ she was being baited, knew exactly what they were doing, but maybe she was _ready_ to be lured out of her nest of blankets. If only to help them limp to the infirmary.

They might not even have the survival instinct to go themselves at this rate.

Kompass was waiting for her outside the door of her quarters, and she grumbled at how predictable she apparently was, falling for their baiting. Pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders. At least he had the good grace not to look triumphant, and just kept pace with her.

Austeyr and Rachet weren't far ahead, and waited for them to catch up. She caught a glimpse of what was in the crates they carried.

“What are you doing with those things exactly?” It was full of salvage, but all small functioning bits instead of metal that would need to be reformed, working hinges, intact bolts; explosives too but also a nearly jaw-dropping amount of wasteland treasure that would ordinarily only be lavished on the rigs. They can’t be serious about—

“Like I said, makin’ you a new arm!” Rachet said eagerly, ducking around a rock outcropping that would have winged the box out of his hands otherwise, “that’s what all I was workin’ on before, I got most of the joints in place…”

“But I already have one,” And a spare, which they’ve all seen. There was the hook she’d cobbled together as well as the arm they’ve retrieved from the canyon.

"Could do with more than just two arms, is what I’m saying; I'm makin' an arm for you too. Can’t let Rachet do it all," Austeyr declared, stirring through his box of parts. "Figure you could use more. Rachet's is for normal days, mine's gonna be for…" his gaze turned hopeful, " _special_ days."

Furiosa’s face went alarmed despite herself. Maybe also intrigued, because she was never quite sure what Austeyr would consider a _special_ day. This arm might involve a flamethrower - or a vibrator.

"Oh man, they gave you one of _those_?" Rachet leaned over to rummaged in Austeyr's box too. "Shine!"

"Bartered for it. And this. Look, it locks."

 _Bartered?_ Furiosa thought, how long had they been planning this?

"What's this for?" Kompass pointed.

"Well those special days, the Boss might need a crossbow on hand, you know?"

"Makes sense," Kompass agreed seriously. "Look, mine has a secret compartment."

Furiosa blinked. “You’re making one as well?”

“I am now,” Kompass said easily, not meeting her gaze as he riffled through the box. She narrowed her eyes at him but had to glance elsewhere because—

"I wonder if I could fit a grenade launcher here," Rachet mused. “We have the thunderheads for it.”

A sound barked out of her that was sort of like laughter. It felt rusty and ill-used and was met with three identical grins.

"I think she likes the grenade launcher idea," Austeyr stage whispered to Rachet.

"Recoil would be murder on her nub," Ace said, walking up and joining their group. Furiosa was relieved at least somebody still had his wits about him.

"Thanks, Ace," she sighed. "I can always rely on you to knock some heads on straight—"

But he immediately rammed that thought, "Crossbow's gotta be doable though."

"See? I told you!" said Austeyr.

Furiosa furrowed her forehead trying to imagine it. Gave up.

Austeyr was working up a full head of steam arguing the merits of smaller explosions versus bigger ones with Kompass playing devil’s advocate. Ace and Rachet were providing heckling and commentary, joining one side or another as the whim struck them. They were all talking as they were moving up the darkened steps, onto the green where the sunlight now crashed onto them, warmly.

When she breathed in, it tasted sharp and crisp, like it was a fruit she bit into, and she’d looked at her crew expecting them to react to it too. But they seemed to be busy debating armature, or simply being ridiculous, shoving each other down the paths, boxes in their careful grip of small luxuries that the Citadel had gathered for her use. Some feeling welled in her chest and it made her want to try, for them, a little.

Furiosa finally just asked, “How would I even set the reloads?”

There was a pause.

They all turned to her, a shock of sudden attention, smiling warmly.

* * *

Max had distractedly parked the buggy and trailer in a small wedge of space near the lift, war pups immediately scrambling over the trailer and sorting through the salvage. He’d answered Janey and Gilly best he could about the locations of wrecks and shook his head at Capable’s hopeful question about any war boys he’d met. He’d need to think about what they’d need to know about what he saw and how to even word any of it. If he was being over-protective by watching his words... or if what war boys did to each other when desperate was just an obvious thing and didn’t need words wasted on it.

Gilly stayed back at the garage to sort through his finds, and Janey seemed to be organising a follow-up mission out. Capable led him over to the mess hall, where they fetched food for him but—

Max couldn’t help protecting his food against attacks that didn’t come and peering around distractedly, feeling exposed on the stone bench all on his own. He was surprised to realise he'd gotten used to eating alongside Furiosa's crew.

Capable looked at him steadily, and then rose slowly out of her seat, “Come on, I think you might eat better up around the green.”

“Nhgh?” Max peered up, head furrowed.

She just walked out expecting him to follow, and he caught a quick glimpse of her smile before she turned her head forward. He gathered his biscuit and lizard quickly and and caught up.

“Furiosa’s crew got her up to the terraces again, she seems to be enjoying it.” Capable paused slightly, “Mmm, we should possibly call them something else. Kompass is working on gathering and training a proper crew for her when she’s well enough to want to go on runs so there really should be a separate name for you guys...”

Max just raised his eyebrow at her as he chewed through his food, listening to her thoughts on names quietly. Maybe he gave her some hums of encouragement but mostly found himself flicking his eyes around at the dark places in the hallways they passed, tracking the flickers of light.

They paused at the curve of the gardens when he saw a circle of war boys with Furiosa on the ground with what looked like a mess of metal and tools around them. Each of them had a scramble of metal in their hands and the men all looked slightly manic, shouting at each other over their work.

The war boys were saying something about a grenade launcher, and Max walked closer despite himself. Capable’s attention seemed to be caught by something off to the side.

“How big?” he asked.

“Huh?” they blinked up at him, but nobody seemed surprised at his appearance or his sudden intrusion.

“The explosion?” he clarified. He spread his fingers in illustration.

Furiosa reached out to him, and he crouched down next to her to press foreheads with her. Let the touch linger a moment, breathing her in. It was such a relief to be back, to see her. She looked paler than he remembered, sicker than he thought she ought to, but she was smiling a little.

“That’s what I’m saying! The kickback would still maul her arm, y’can’t do it.”

“Her… arm?” his attention was drawn back by the others, and he sat down on the grass, stretching out his bad leg.

“Yeah!” Rachet remarked cheerfully, holding up his project, “We’re having an arms race!”

An… _arms race_?

“And talking about how feasible it would be to put a launcher into one!”

“Maybe even a thunderstick launcher!”

“Still say crossbow’s the way to go.” Ace muttered.

“But she’d constantly have to reset the draw!"

"At least she _could_ , on account of her shoulder not being fucked by the recoil."

“If you just add a retractable tripod—”

“Tripod! You given any thought over how heavy that’s all gonna be?!”

Furiosa had the air of having heard this all before, but the twitches around the edges of her mouth indicated amusement.

He wondered if it was a more sane version of lizard racing.

“Max,” it was a young woman’s voice greeting him and when he looked over, Cheedo were standing there, looking at the circle of Warboys with interest. Cheedo crouched down to show him something. 

“What’s that?" Max asked.

“I heard about what going on up here, thought that. Well,” she uncurled her hand, “We’ve been using some washers with some rubber sides as paperweights, they might work well as a attachment on whatever arm she’s using.”

Ace looked over at her words, and pulled a half-finished arm from a box. “Mm, would help her handle paper without tearing it. Something for this light arm, maybe?"

He handed the arm over to Cheedo, who held it hesitantly.

Then Ace handed her a tool, friendly-like. "Go on then, put them on."

"I, uh…" The girl looked a little lost with it. Max thought he should, perhaps, say something. But the words still felt creaky in him and he felt a bit like he should run, at that moment hearing all the young voices that would ask things of him. Even in this sunlight, even with this green surrounding him, his ghosts call; and it made him feel cornered unexpectedly.

Ace stared at her for a moment with raised eyebrows, then shook himself, muttering "No, how would you know that?" and showed her how to loosen the joins that were currently on the fingers of the arm.

Cheedo watched him carefully, then got to work unscrewing what was needed to attach the new bit. Max felt something strangle in his stomach, watching Ace teach her. Like the first punch of air after being underwater.

He was relieved, and strange with it. With this feeling that sat as awkwardly as he felt, in this place where he was not exactly needed. But still welcomed; a box got tapped in his direction by Rachet, who didn’t meet his eyes but threw him a smile, and Kompass slid some tools over, and occasionally when he looked up, he was greeted with a look from various people that said,

_it’s good to have you back._

Max swallowed against it, and felt undeserving.

* * *

Toast circled their group and then kneeled down with Furiosa, lowering her voice. "None of your warboys have touched their brands."

"No?" Furiosa agreed, puzzled.

"There have been a few, since the dispute. Cutting at it or… trying to get it off of them."

"Mine might be waiting on me." Furiosa didn't seem all that surprised. Toast squinted at her a little, unsure if this meant it was typical war boy behavior or if Furiosa was still in that distanced state she’d been in while recovering.

"Can't you try to stop the others?"

"I thought you'd be…” and here she flicked her gaze at Dag, talking a ways away with some greenthumbs, “happy that they'd want Joe's mark off of them."

"I am.. we _are_ , but it's so— one warboy cut it off deep, it's horrible." The bleeding wouldn’t stop and it took both Capable and Toast talking to Feng to get the Soundless to come help instead of letting the war boy cauterise it himself. “He was sleeping it off in the infirmary but, you know them best, do you think other war boys would see it as an example?”

She'd seen a little of how they liked to one-up each other, prove their 'hardness' by taking risks and inflicting pain. Even these warboys, even with Furiosa's influence, wrestled at the drop of a hat and found it hilarious when somebody tripped and fell.

"An example of stupidity maybe. Dying from that would be a soft death," she paused, eyeing Kompass significantly, who nodded in return. Toast wondered if he'd understood to spread the word. She hoped so.

"Hmm, the scarification is more than just decoration," Furiosa continued. "It’s as prized as a name. If you found out your name had been soured, had never meant what you thought it did...” Furiosa looked into the distance thoughtfully then refocused on Toast, “I could try to stop them, but if the only alternative is to keep walking around with the brand, you'll always have guys who try to take it off themselves somehow. No one wants to tie themselves to something that’s rust.”

“Like no one wants a name that’s rust,” Toast hummed thoughtfully.

“Just like that.” Furiosa shrugged, “I'm surprised they cut at it, I would have expected them to put a second brand over it." They both reflexively touched their necks.

Toast winced, but shook it off. "We want to introduce a new symbol, to replace the skulls. Maybe as a tattoo for those that don’t want new branding. Wanted to run it by you first."

"Yeah?" Furiosa was distracted for a moment by the call for a tool from the other side of the circle. She tossed it easily, and then refocused on Toast.

Toast pulled dug a piece of chalk from a belt pocket and glanced around, finding a likely flat rock to sketch on. “We have the original brand right? or even the rock face. If we tattoo over it, and add these lines, with the flames it looks like—”

“A tree,” Furiosa breathed, scooting closer.

“The skull on the Citadel never had any flames,” Toast shrugged, “could never figure out if that meant that Joe never expected to go out to Vahalla himself.” She saw Kompass’ head dart up, out of the corner of her eye.

"We could plant creeper vines on the walls there, and shape them into the leaves on a tree." Dag said, as she came up to them, “Leaves from stone. Green from stone.”

She stood in front of Furiosa and shifted her weight a little, awkwardly. “Some words of mine were over-sharp about your arm. But I saw you and yours here, making new arms for a new life, and I thought…” Dag looked around at them all, and firmed her jaw some. "Maybe she needs an arm that's not for war."

Trowel walked shyly up to them, carrying a piece of thick tree branch. “Imperator.”

“This had been downed since the last sandstorm,” Dag explained, “It was to go to the Immortan anyway but. I can have the carvers work to make an arm that won’t rust; useful for if you’d like to join us up here sometime to work on the green.”

Wood wouldn’t rust if she’d decided to water plants, but was such a rare and valuable material that Furiosa was surprised and honored it was being offered.

“Capable said it’s possible. She’s talking about the design now with the others,” Dag pointed up the terraces to where the redhead was talking rapidly with both a greenthumb and an artisan that a war pup brought up. “Could bring them down if you have any preferences? You know best what works for you.”

Furiosa looked at the people gathered around her, for her, and felt humbled with it, with these signs of esteem that they’d made and brought for her. “All these arms, I wouldn’t even be able to use them all.”

“Don’t matter Boss,” Rachet called from his end, face screwed up as he’d tightened a couple last screws, “Wanted to make sure you _could_ , if you wanted to. Here, pass this over to her.”

The arm was passed along and it was like nothing they’d been talking about, no armaments or crossbows or grenades. Just a light, functional arm with a strange attachment.

“What’s that?” Austeyr asked, as he passed it along, pointing it out.

“Don’t think she’s visited the hanging gardens for a long time right?” _since she’d lost her arm_ , was left unsaid. “Thinking the Boss might want to zip around some, like the Soundless. This bit prevents the rope from sliding back out if she don’t want.”

“...What?” Furiosa asked faintly.

“You…” the war boy looked small and uncertain, “don’t want to move like—”

“Rachet, how did you know this is how they get around?” They were all staring back at him in confusion.

“The _fffzzzzip_ sound?”

“What?!”

“It’s very distinctive?”

The arm finally got to Furiosa and she fiddled with it, ignoring the exclamations and the questions at Rachet that continued without her, seeing where the lines would go and playing with the pulley mechanism. She’d test it out in one of the larger rooms first, see how much weight it could bear and for how long, and then fiddle with the fit around her shoulder and waist if it checked out.

She found herself looking forward to it like she hadn’t much of anything for a long while.

“Rachet,” she called out, testing the straps, then looking up with a small quirk around her mouth.

“Yeah Boss?”

“Looks good.”

The man beamed and Austeyr crowed and bumped their knees together so enthusiastically that Rachet nearly tipped over backwards.

“Watch the injuries!” Furiosa called out with laughter in her voice. "Need you all in one piece."

“Sure thing Boss!”


	37. Screamer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Screamer: A long fall on a rope, frequently with screaming
> 
> _"Sometimes a shoe is just a shoe, Max," Furiosa finally managed, a little breathless. "And sometimes a lizard is just a lizard."_
> 
> _She looked thoughtful and moved her thigh against Austeyr, who felt his face grow warm._
> 
> _"And sometimes a boner is just a boner."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here be smut

That night they all piled up together, a little more twined together than Austeyr remembered. Furiosa pulled them all closer and made a happy little sound. 

“I’m glad you are here. I- I noticed what you did, getting me up there," she said softly in one rushed breath. She smiled at Rachet and squeezed his hand for a moment. Kompass chuckled and reached out across Austeyr to pet the top of her head, what he could reach of it past the others, and they laughed and made space for him to crawl over their bodies so Furiosa could lean her head against his.

“ Good job, replace-ace,” Ace smirked from behind Furiosa, and reached over to pat Kompass on his ass 

“That’s right,” Kompass said grandly, still draped heavily across Rachet and Austeyr. “filling your shoes... a bit small for my feet tho, but that’s alright.”

Rachet muffled his laughter against Kompass' side. 

"It's not the size of the feet,” Ace retorted, “it's what you do with ‘em."

There was a little huff of breath from the ledge, and they looked up to see Max grin. 

"See? Max agrees," Ace said, letting his arm drape around Furiosa and hold her loosely.

"Don't, ah, don't drag me into this." he muttered something about lizards, and Austeyr half choked, and awkwardly tried to launch himself out of the pile.

"Not that filth again!" he hissed. 

Rachet hauled at him with his good arm and Kompass settled his weight more heavily on Austeyr, teasing him about making such a fuss.

Furiosa laughed, and they all stilled for a moment, listening to it. Feeling the vibration move through them. Such a rare sound. It made them chuckle, too, curl in tighter to feel it, Ace spooning close and the others shifting towards her. 

"Sometimes a shoe is just a shoe, Max," Furiosa finally managed, a little breathless. "And sometimes a lizard is just a lizard." 

She looked thoughtful and moved her thigh against Austeyr, who felt his face grow warm. 

"And sometimes a boner is just a boner."

The warm press of her body against his had had its usual effect, and it wasn't generally something any of them felt ashamed of. But the Boss hadn't been well, hadn't been interested in sexing lately, and Austeyr wasn't quite sure if she would be annoyed with him for it now. 

"You should take care of that," she said softly, but it wasn't a dismissal, it was warm and close to his ear and maybe even - interested.

He felt his gearstick twitch with the thought that she wanted him to do it right here next to her, maybe even wanted to watch him do it. 

"Yeah?"

"Mm," she nodded. 

Austeyr was pretty squished so shoved at Kompass, who shifted until he was mostly lying on Rachet, who enjoyed getting squished sometimes. With his arms free, he unbuttoned his pants, heart already racing with the thought she wanted to watch him get himself off, Rachet and Kompass pushing at the cloth too until it slipped from his legs. 

He reached down and teased himself a little, drawing it out. 

Furiosa made an impatient little hum, and Austeyr saw Ace, behind her, grin. 

“Puttin’ on a show fer us?”

"Just taking care of things as ordered," Austeyr gasped a little, running his fingertips lightly across his shaft. 

Kompass peered over his shoulder, “Go a little faster,” he suggested.

Rachet poked him in the shoulder, "are you doing that twisty—"

“ Hey!” Austeyr complained, "I can  _ handle  _ it."

“Don’t see you handling much of anything,” Ace snarked, “Com’on, fang it.”

Austeyr saw Furiosa's hand twitch as he traced his hand over his own stomach, his thighs. Felt his gearstick strain up, and the only reason he could resist the urge to touch himself right, touch himself  _ now _ , was the heated look the Boss was giving him. Like she wanted to take a bite out of him. 

“Naaah,” he hummed drawing it out thoughtfully, “Think I gotta handle it gentle.” He drew a careful touch around his cockhead, a flare of sensation, and felt his thighs quiver with trying to restrain himself. “S-slow.”

Furiosa made a sound that could only be described as a growl. He saw Ace’s eyes sharpen in sudden understanding and amused approval as she squirmed a little, her thighs rubbing together and Austeyr felt the first drops of starter fluid leak from his cock. 

"Somethin' you want, Boss?"

“Keep going,” she ordered, even as she dragged Ace’s hand down from where it’d rested on her stomach. Ace chuckled and gave her the pressure she needed, slipping his thick fingers under cloth until she made a little keening sound. 

It’d made Austeyr tighten his grip on himself, and he’d gasped and mindlessly thrusted into it once until he grabbed control again and clutched at his thigh instead, breathing hard. He could hear Max shift on the ledge, saw the man watch with interest. 

He nearly started as he felt a hand land on his hip, but then Austeyr recognized Kompass’ broad hand as it slid down to grab hold of him. And he arched into that touch, which was anything but teasing.

He'd protest, weakly, if it hadn't meant he was now face to face with Furiosa. He took a glance down at where Ace’s large hand disappeared down the front of her trousers, the way her stomach jumped with the hidden movement of his fingers.

She looked directly into his eyes, pupils huge, and he couldn't help but look back, his stomach feeling weird and light under Kompass's touching. Without thinking about it he pressed his lips to her forehead, hand clenching on his thigh to follow her directions to keep touching himself.

“Aus, hey,” Her hand landed on his forearm, clutching as if trying to find a grip, looking at him as if trying to say something but her eyes closing as Ace shifted them a bit, positioning them more comfortably, and the movement surprised a moan out of her. 

Austeyr leaned his forehead against hers and watched, breath catching as Kompass’ hand moved faster and Rachet slid a hand down between his legs and Austeyr spread his legs a little to give him room. Rachet slid his palm up with a pleased sound, to cup his balls, and they rolled in his palm as they moved. It was wrecking him to keep so still, to be passive, and he was shaking with the effort. But Furiosa kept _watching_ him and her grip was like a brand on his arm and she wasn’t even watching where Kompass was jerking him but.

Staring at  _ him _ , he felt torn open under the gaze, and cornered, and uncertain for being seen, but she was looking at him like she couldn’t quite believe that he was here, and like this, and for her. Except of course he was. Of course he tried to be, even how exposed he felt, he tried to be. 

Furiosa, even with crew, never. Never looked this closely before, or at least not with him. And he could understand why because even when she saw him, Austeyr saw her too, her uncertainty and distant loss and a vulnerability that tried to shutter itself away but broke open every time she tried to really look at him. 

And that was why Austeyr couldn’t look away. It was like being Witnessed only far more— far  _ more _ . Even when Kompass sped up his hand and he couldn’t hold the noises back anymore he pried his eyes open and kept looking, cupped his free hand along her jaw and kept looking. 

He spilled like that, destroyed by knowing hands and her gaze, mind struck blank and blind.

Kompass moved his hand up so Austeyr could lick it clean, and then slid it along to Furiosa's breast, kneading lightly, and she pressed forward into the touch with a noise like she was revving up. 

"We've got you," Ace murmured against the back of her head, fingers still busy, "We've got you, all safe here, got you—"

She made a noise that could almost be a sob, and curled forward, pressing her face against Austeyr's neck, her orgasm shuddering through her, hand tight on his arm. He pressed against her harder, knowing she liked shaking the aftershocks loose against a body instead of pushing a body away as some were wont to do. It was only now, though, that he suspected that she was pulling them all against herself to shore her for up those moments where she felt raw and bared, with her shields down.

As her heartbeat slowed down Austeyr could feel Kompass shift, still on top of Rachet, and start a slow, grinding rhythm against the other warboy. Both their bodies rearranged to focus on the other, and he could hear Rachet groan a "Yessss.." while Ace indistinctly murmured what sounded like a question in Furiosa’s ear. She hummed, and moved back against him as he took up a rolling motion against her hip, his fingers not moving from their spot in her trousers. 

In the middle of this nest of comfort, familiar sounds and scents and motions, Austeyr found his gaze drifting to Max's ledge, seeing the Wastelander watch them all. It looked cold up there, and he had his head tilted as if he was confused. And maybe.. longing. 

Austeyr made a head motion to invite him over, knowing after their time on the green that he'd be welcome, but the man startled and hurriedly shook his head no. It was strange because Max didn’t seem uninterested like some were, in fact his pants looked like he was definitely interested--

But in the end it wasn't his decision to make. Austeyr mentally shrugged and pulled himself tighter against Furiosa, hand landing on Ace’s hip and pulling him in harder as the older man strangled some moans against Furiosa’s neck. She hid her smile against Austeyr’s skin and he thought that was a fine way to all collapse, sated and warm, and fall asleep. 

* * *

Max… watched. His whole body ached to touch, his fingers twitched with the urge to reach out, but Max stayed on his ledge and watched.

Thought about it a lot, if he were honest. He'd woken up more than a few times with the images of them on his mind and his body achingly hard and straining for relief. 

In fact.. Max watched the tangled bodies on the mattress for a few moments more, until he was certain they'd all drifted into sleep. Then pressed the heel of his hand down, hard, on his erection, willing it to go down.

In another situation, in another life, Max might have already have reached to touch her, to caress her, to make her feel good. Eager for the contact. In a world where she didn't already have people around her; warboys he was still a little wary of, even though he could sleep around them now, even though they trusted him around themselves, and more important, around Furiosa.

But there was something in the way she leaned against Ace, in the way she drew Austeyr against her, in the way she breathed under Kompass' touch, that made him… well, not  _ worry _ .

No.

But aware?

Yeah, aware. He remembered how he'd crashed into her personal space when his own need was high, ignoring her signals, and what Ace had told him: 'You can't just touch her like that'. Max wasn't completely sure he knew another way, and he didn’t want to risk it until he knew he did. 

Despite the harshness of their lives, the Warboys had clearly learned another way, and that still surprised him every time, how much care there was in their touches, their looks. 

He’d come into the habit of these past many years of running, and fighting free so that he could run, of moving fast and rough so that his opponents were overwhelmed. And these weren’t opponents but Max was almost not sure he could break free of those habits. Violence was easy. Gentleness took all his concentration, like threading a needle with a line of his own blood, and being mindful of another's boundaries was such a new effort that he was afraid of failing the moment he stopped deliberately thinking about it. 

This needed the effort,  _ she  _ needed the effort, the situation feeling fragile enough like he didn’t quite know how to hold it, how to be a part of it. How to be this person, so different from who Max needed to be out in the wastes, and not track the madness into their home.

It might have been different if he could have time together with her, if he could figure out the sounds and language of her slow and thorough. But it was clear that whatever he would do with her would involve an audience of the War boys, unlikely to tolerate mistakes even if Furiosa herself was. Maybe that was best. They wouldn't let him fuck up and hurt her. 

So Max watched her Warboys touch her. Watched how well they knew her, knew how she liked to be touched, knew exactly how to make her gasp. Of how they worked together, anticipated her. Bared themselves for her.

Just because the warboys knew her well, had her trust to touch her in ways that made her vulnerable, didn't mean he did too. Didn't mean he could just start at the place where they were all together. Max didn't have their years of shared experiences, didn't know who she was when she relaxed, how her body felt in pleasure, how he could be sure how she wanted to be touched by him. It made him intensely aware that no matter how well they'd synched up in the heat of battle, he'd only known her in what was probably one of the most stressful and turbulent times of her life. 

How she'd looked that time he'd seen Austeyr massage her back was stamped into Max’s memory because of it, how she'd been facedown on the mattress with the warboy on top of her, how she'd been loose and relaxed enough to moan under Austeyr's hands. The image kept coming back to him, half exciting and half tangled up with the time Max had had her under him like that, moments before he'd put three bullets in the sand next to her skull. 

He hated that his dick didn't care, only remembered the feeling of being pressed up against her ass. It made him feel squirmy with guilt that the thought of that position was exciting. 

So Max only watched, body achingly hard, and tried to learn her. And turned away afterward, like now, to replay the images and the sounds of it in his head and fall asleep frustrated and alone. 

What felt like an hour later, he was still awake. The sounds of sleep rose from the mattress, soft snores and occasional shifting, somebody's restless murmuring soothed by sleepy patting. 

Max's body refused sleep, the images of their earlier touching still strong in his mind. Eventually he gave up and eased himself off the ledge, moving slowly and quietly, trying not to wake anybody. It wasn't like they didn't wake and fall asleep easily, but his face was hot with what he knew he was about to do. 

The Citadel was quiet this hour of night, and he didn't go far. Found a little alcove and wedged himself in out of sight, his hand already straying to his dick. 

* * *

"Hey."

Max twitched as Kompass sat down on the edge of the open hood, bruises on his skin vivid without clay to conceal them. Apparently there'd been some kind of warboy conflict. A Debate? Something like that. It had come to blows, anyway. Toast had mentioned it to him as they’d walked to the garage. Max was glad he had missed it entirely, during his trip out. 

It was after breakfast, and Max had gone to the garage out of lack of better things to do, doing some maintenance on the car he'd been out with. Meanwhile the Tribune split off to talk supplies and inventory with the repair boys, assessing what use they might make of Max’s finds. He wasn’t entirely surprised that one of Furiosa’s crew wanted to debrief him for themselves.

Max grunted in acknowledgement and continued working. 

"What'd you find, out there?"

Max still didn't know Kompass very well, hadn't spent time with him like he'd done with Austeyr and Rachet and even Ace. The Warboy always looked at the end of his patience, but Max knew Furiosa wouldn't like him so well if there wasn't more to the man. 

Still, to corner him here while he was working and ask that - he felt the strange urge to strike out at the Warboy, to make him flinch. 

"Warboys eatin' each other's flesh," he grunted. "Gone mad. Killin' each other. This pair I found—"

Max told him about what he'd encountered, voice coming easier as he spoke. It was a relief to say the words out loud, and Kompass didn't deflect them or try to make the atrocity less; he only listened attentively, with the occasional hum of understanding. 

"Was worried about that," he said finally. "Way the boys are tellin' it, Noxious had them all swept up, made them fight for spots on the convoy. Told the losers they were useless, getting left behind to die soft."

Max grunted, because… yeah. That didn't surprise him. 

"You tell this to the Boss?"

"No. Reckon she's got enough…" he gestured vaguely, and Kompass nodded in agreement. "Told Janey though." 

"Mm. Good." They both looked over to where Janey was assembling her patrol group. 

"Think that'll be okay?" Max said, nodding towards them. 

Kompass observed the group, the way the warboys jumped to the tasks Janey was handing out. 

"Yeah. They like her," Kompass nodded after consideration. "An' I've added some of our own guys."

Max made a questioning sound. 

"Some of the ones I picked new, for Furiosa's crew. They's solid."

Max counted sixteen Warboys ready to go out with Janey, six of them blackthumbs, and yeah, that ought to be enough. Even if some of the crazed Warboys he'd seen were still alive, they'd have enough people to defend themselves, and Janey wasn't the kind of soft person to take risks. 

He hummed and turned back to the engine block. 

Kompass didn't leave. 

"What happened back here?" Max asked eventually. He groped blindly for a spanner, and Kompass put it into his hand. "With Furiosa."

"Don't rightly know," Kompass sighed. "Got sad and tired. Miss Gale said she was heartsick."

"Mm.” In the years since the world fell, while it had made some more vicious and more feral, with others it was as if their spirit leaked out slowly. As if it died like the world did; he had a vague memory of looking for a house with green gardens by the dying sea, a meek dam against the Wasteland, for somebody who took energy from colour and growing. The Wastes would kill a person like that. Max cleared his throat, banishing such thoughts, especially here. Especially now.

"Thought maybe it was something like old grief gone rusty, clogging up the works, stalling the engine," Kompass said, quiet and tense. "Reckon we all got some of that, but none so much as t'Boss."

"Reckon so," Max agreed. He remembered the way she'd collapsed in the desert, when she'd found out about the Green Place. 

“Seen some like it in war boys about to go out soft, or who’d been sliding that way for a long while,” the war boy admitted quietly. “Don’t much like the look of it on her but Miss Gale says it should pass.”

“It’s been bad?” Max asked, a tightness in his chest that he tried to uncoil by remembering the laughter she had last night.

"Seems a little better now though," Kompass continued, tone lifting a little. "We got her up to the green again. And she was interested in sexing last night, that's always a good sign."

Max hummed in acknowledgement. He had no idea why his cheeks flushed, but he was glad to have an excuse to stay bent under the hood of the car. 

"You don't hafta leave when you wanna ‘debrief’.”

He made a questioning sound, thinking that he’d made himself available to talk about his trip so what...

“Rub one out, ya know," Kompass said, like a rock upside the head.

Max froze for a moment before forcing himself to continue working. Reminding himself to breathe and force his heartrate down. He'd tried to be discrete, but apparently he'd not just been seen leaving her quarters, they'd known exactly what he'd gone to do. 

"If she minded you watchin' you wouldn't be sleeping in her quarters in the first place," Kompass said, sounding like he was shrugging. "Hell, she'd probably like watching you rub off. Appreciates a show, our Boss does."

Max had a sudden, vivid image of her eyes on him while he stroked himself, giving him the same heated look she'd given Austeyr last night. He choked on his own saliva and bashed his head against the underside of the open hood. 

Kompass chuckled and helpfully pounded him on the back.

* * *

Thankfully the warboy had left him alone after that, and Max had gotten in a few productive hours of tending to the engine. He'd seen off Janey's expedition, pulling her aside to warn her again of what she was likely to find. She'd patted his shoulder and promised once more to be careful, looking fond about the eyes. 

Max was waiting in line for lunch when Kompass sought him out again, two other Warboys with him. He grunted a greeting, assuming he'd be acknowledged and then ignored in favour of the warboys, but Kompass came to stand with him. 

"Hey Max. These guys are testing out to be on Furiosa's new crew." 

Max stared at the warboys for a moment before he remembered they were expecting some sort of acknowledgement or greeting. 

"I'm uh, Max," he grunted, his right hand for some reason hovering forward before he wrapped it back around the bowl he was holding. 

"Nuts," said one of the warboys. 

"Lube," said the other. 

Max choked on the piece of biscuit he'd been chewing. When Kompass whacked him on the back hard enough to nearly dislodge a tooth, he gave the other man an incredulous look.

"Really?"

"What? You don't think they'll be useful?"

He was being baited, surely he was being baited. Kompass obviously liked making him squirm. 

"Sure. I'm sure he," Max nodded at 'Lube'," keeps things running smoothly." 

"Exactly!" Lube said. "Essential, you know, I make sure all the parts move together nicely, no friction." He spread his hands and waved them a bit like Austeyr did when describing proper lizard form.

Max could feel the strain on his face. "I'm sure that— that'll come in handy with the, uh, lizard racing." 

Lube turned to Kompass in confusion, “Though ya’ll didn’t do that anymore, with the new crew?”

“Didn’t think there’d be time, what with everyone pulling more rotations because of shortages.” Kompass bumped his elbow against Max’s, “Might work something with just Boss and us, if you’re set on it though?”

“Um…” Just then Max was at the front of the line, so he turned to the woman dispensing soup and held out his bowl. In the moment after, while the warboys got theirs, he made a beeline for the exit. 

He hoped no one saw his face red, in the poor lighting.

* * *

"Furiosa found him in the Wasteland," Kompass explained to the others, puzzled by the man's reaction. "Austeyr dragged him back after. He's good crew, but a bit... " he shrugged. 

"Feral?" Lube asked, watching the Wastelander's back as he walked out hastily. Nuts was looking back and forth between them all.

"He saved the Boss' life. He's no warboy, but you better treat him as good as if he were, you hear?" Kompass said, letting a note of force slip into his voice. "He's crew. You ain't yet, and if you treat him like rust, you'll never be."

The two warboys nodded seriously, and Kompass hoped Max hadn't disliked them too much to work with them. 

* * *

"Maybe he's gotten lost?" Gale said, glancing at Furiosa. They'd agreed to meet up with the Fool up here in the gardens, but they'd been waiting a while.

Furiosa hid a grimace. Maybe not so much lost as… any other number of unpleasant options. Waylaid. Attacked. Stuck in a flashback.

"Let's…" she gestured toward the steps down into the tower, and Gale nodded. "Yeah."

They found him only a few levels down, standing in a hallway with what Furiosa thought of as his 'Huh?' face. Head tilted a little, looking as if he was the last sane person alive. She followed his gaze, and—

"Huh."

"Well wou’d’ya look at that," Gale said, amused.

"I guess this is what we get now some of them are learning to write their name," Furiosa said after a long pause.

On the wall in a bend of the hallway, strategically visible from both sides, somebody had carved his name into the rock face. Correction:  _ Thunder  _ had carved his name into the rock face. As well as a crude, rather oversized depiction of his… thunderstick.

Furiosa tilted her head. "Is that... a medical condition?"

Max made a little choking sound.

"Let's hope it's just poor drawing talent," Gale snorted.

"We should probably warn people who don't want to be menaced by Thunder's poxy thunderstick," Furiosa mused. "Until we can…" she waved a hand at it.

"Leave it to me," Gale nodded. "I'm sure I could turn it into something educational."

The hallway eventually became known as 'the hallway of courage' once Gale had overlaid her rather gruesome anatomical drawing. Then, when the point was made (and no Warboy wanted to come near it) the wall was turned into a mural depicting the gardens above, neatly hiding Thunder’s handiwork.

_ They are trying to leave something of themselves behind _ , Furiosa told the Vuvalini, the Sisters. Especially now everything had changed and even Valhalla was no longer a certainty. Carving on their bodies had never been permanent enough; their bodies didn't  _ last _ . 

She told the Warboys that she didn't care what was on the walls down in the barracks, but the rest of the towers had to be for everybody.

Eventually Marienny stepped into the gap together with Deka - talking to people about which stories they wanted to tell, and how they should be depicted on the rock walls. Groups formed, walls were claimed, designs were tested with chalk, discussed and adapted and slowly, actual history started to be etched into the walls of the Citadel.

When those of the New Citadel eventually look back trying to find a beginning, this was one of the places they found.

* * *

That evening Kompass managed to track down Max again.

“So what’s your opinion on Lube? Think he’ll be good for crew?”

The Wastelander started choking on nothing again. That seemed to happen a lot - maybe they should get Gale to listen to his lungs. Some warboys had this problem, and they didn't usually live much longer.  


“You, ah, won’t have a problem working with him and Nuts?”

Max blinked. “You’ve been trying to get my opinion?”

“On them, yeah. Things work better if a crew can at least all work together, don’t have to like ‘em, necessarily.” Kompass felt his face go tense as he looked away, “Just have to make the runs smooth.”

“They seem fine? Don’t really know them,” he said awkwardly.

“What was that then in the mess hall?” Kompass pressed, "I brought 'em so we could eat together, get a feel for 'em. It matters if you don’t think you can have Lube on our…” 

He drifted off as he watched the man go more and more red.

_ Ohh _ .

"Austeyr was  _ right! _ " Kompass found himself fighting a grin because he didn’t want to chase the man away again, and at this rate he wasn't sure if the man would even bunk down with them tonight. But this was too amusing, Max looked almost awkward with the filth that his mind was giving him with a face just full of exasperated self-reproach. 

Kompass patted him amicably on the shoulder. "It's all right. Like the Boss says, sometimes a shoe is just a shoe, a lizard just a lizard, and lube just stuff ta get the friction outta moving parts."

"Not helping," Max ground out. 

Kompass glanced down and snickered a little, and then started walking the man through the crew he was thinking on. If he succeeded in getting him to Furiosa's quarters without considering fleeing elsewhere for the night, all the better. 

* * *

Max stared at the still-talking war boy as they walked, who kept bringing up war boys Max barely knew, and their favorite new paint patterns and gear so that Max could recognize them. The more he was around these war boys, the more he realized that Nux, out there in the wastes, had been abnormally silent and pensive.

He was recognizing the hallways they were passing however, and knew they were coming up on Furiosa’s room. And it was evening, about time for them all to bed down. But Kompass paused at a where the hall split three ways.

“There’s Imperator quarters in every direction here,” he said carefully, “If you’re finding things too crowded. Hell, Ace'd probably be fine with you using his." He pointed to a door. 

Max blinked and looked all around him, and when he looked back, Kompass was already moving down the hall again, toward Furiosa's door. 

“We don’t even have to know which one you pick,” he called over his shoulder. “And you’ll know where we’ll be.”

_By Furiosa’s side_ , was implied. _At her back_ , Max knew, and had seen for himself through siege and healing and politics. Guarding her.

Max thought about it, being in a separate room, away from all the uncertainty and the awkwardness and uncomfortable pants, and the innuendo that's sometimes innuendo and sometimes apparently not. He had a feeling though, that the dreams would chase him no matter where he bunked down.

It would be safer, maybe, sleeping somewhere else. No risk of being tempted to touch her wrong, rough, like some of his guilty fantasies. Then again the warboys would be there, would make sure he didn't fuck up. And something about the idea of waking up to utter silence, instead of the breathing and snores and other sounds of people nearby, didn't appeal. 

_When did that happen?_ Max’s eyes grew wide and he realized that his lungs stopped working.

He breathed out forcefully, and shook himself into a decision, and then caught up to Kompass. Didn’t look at him when he said, “I could still choose one of them later.”

“Yep,” Kompass nodded, not looking back, “Rooms aren’t gonna fill up quick, would need more war boys first to make that many Imperators worth it.”

“Furiosa’s room… ‘s nicer tho.” Max muttered.

“Yep,” Kompass agreed, and bumped their shoulders together.


	38. Lead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Lead** (sharp end of the rope, on point): To be the first climber up a pitch and to place protection along the way while being belayed by a partner from below.
> 
> _“...what do you mean the lumps are removeable?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wasteland surgery. And also smut

A few relatively quiet days passed. The Tribunes presented the new sigil and presented Furiosa and Ace with their new belt hangers during midday meal, the cheers rang loud that day and the halls were abuzz with stories of their various runs, but also of Tribune Toast’s new permanent paint. She’d marked over the skull brand with black, making it into the image of a tree. Some had gone up to her afterward and asked if they could mark theirs over with anything, at which point Miss Giddy had stepped up and taken the rest of the questions, to Feng’s chagrin.

Ace was wondering about that himself, he liked the wheel even if it turned his stomach that it was the Immortan’s sign, but wasn’t sure if he’d understood the tree enough to be re-marked with it. He approached the History Woman so as to ask. 

But he found her avidly listening to an increasingly loud argument between Gale and Feng about 'permanent body alteration', and so shrugged and settled next to her for a listen. Mayhap it was a lover’s quarrel over tattoos? Gale defending Giddy’s honor? Feng being either taken to task by a friend or challenged by another suitor? He found himself wishing for a snack while he watched.

“So what’re they on about?” Ace asked Giddy, hoping for some gossip.

Giddy seemed surprised that he’d gotten so near without her noticing but said easily, “Removing them lumps of yours.”

“Eeh?” Ace tried to reorient himself.

She turned back to Ace and furrowed her head, “Thought it was talked to you some, about them being cut out.”

“Seems pretty quick though to talk about it already,” Ace had imagined it to be some far off plan, difficult to achieve as the Organic Mechanic hadn’t seemed inclined to such. Hadn’t even tried imagining it for himself, to be honest.

“That’s what they’re on about,” she gestured at the argument, “can’t seem to agree on even how to announce it or if it’s right to demand that all have to cut them out.”

"Joe woulda just ordered us, if it was what he wanted."

"You hear that, Feng?" Miss Giddy raised her voice a little. The argument quietened down abruptly. 

"Hear what?"

The old woman nudged Ace, and he repeated, "Joe woulda just ordered us, if it was what he wanted."

Feng’s face twisted up like she smelled something awful. “And all the war boys would submit to it, if we did that?”

Ace shrugged uncomfortably, “It’s the New Citadel, right?”

“Would you really consider acting like Joe would have done?" Gale asked Feng. "Because I'm here with the understanding that things will be different now."

“ ‘s plenty different.” Ace pointed out, unsure why he said that. 

"And _none of those changes will matter_ if we're willing to order people to undergo medically unnecessary permanent body alterations," Miss Gale said sharply, her tone somehow impossibly weary. 

“ They’re  _ tumors _ ,” Feng declared. "What's there to talk about?"

And then they were off again.

“Yeah,” Ace huffed, exchanging a wry glance with Giddy, “That’s going to need some discussion.”

* * *

“Where’s this Dispute you were saying, between a Soundless and the desert women?”

“Look, look over there.”

“Man they’re really going at it.”

“Keeping it clean though.”

“Pretty boring if you ask me, I thought there'd be some good punchin'”

“And what are the chances of the desert woman winning even, eh?” Kaybar leaned in, “What’re the odds?”

“Pft, ‘course the Soundless will win, what are you saying.”

“Care to make a bet on it?”

“So what are they even disputing over?”

…

“ ...what do you mean the lumps are  _ removeable?” _

* * *

Gale let out a long sigh as she settled down in Furiosa's quarters. “It wasn't my intention that the war boys found out like that, but it’s my own blasted fault.”

"So who won?" Austeyr asked, somewhat more intently than she was expecting.

"We agreed that Feng will do the surgery, and I will make sure that anybody on that table is there voluntarily and understanding the risks."

"But who  _ won _ ?” Rachet insisted, “I have rations riding on it."

Miss Gale gave them a very dry look and then cut her eyes to Furiosa. 

"The warboys are worried. Even with Capable explaining, they don't trust the Soundless, they'd rather live with the lumps," Furiosa agreed. 

Ace had a feeling like he knew where this was going. 

"Is that a problem? Keeping ‘em? You said the lumps themselves weren't causin’ the war boys to sicken. Why would the Archive want to order us if it's not necessary to cut the lumps?"

"Feng doesn’t want them there at all, that’s our argument. She doesn't think you could make the decision, that any who would choose to avoid it is Joe-poisoned and childish, so we should just order you to have surgery."

The warboys were silent. Ace thought that it was true they were Joe-poisoned, but he felt uneasy with the thought of the warboys being ordered to the cutting room. It didn't feel like that was something the Tribunes would do. 

"I feel it's not a problem if the lumps are not malignant, growin’ too fast I mean. If the lumps grow slowly, they are benign - they probably won't kill the person, or not for a really long time. We—” Gale made an aborted gesture of frustration “—or rather _I_ want to offer the option of having them removed because for some, life would probably be more comfortable without the lumps.”

She glanced at the war boys, seeming to take them all in, the way they were clustered in Furiosa's room. Ace shifted uncomfortably, and exchanged looks with the others.

“You mentioned that yours press on your windpipe, right?"

"You want me to go first." It was half question, half conclusion. 

"Well—" she hesitated. gestured to his neck. "Not those, we want to do some in less difficult locations first.” Furiosa’s crew were all looking at each other uneasily. “We were hoping you could talk to the warboys, see if anybody is willing to vo—"

"I'll do it," Austeyr said suddenly. When Gale turned to him, he stood up from the window ledge and lifted his arm, showing her the lumps along his side. "Been bothering my aim, so I don't mind you learning your cuttin' on me."

Gale glanced at Furiosa, who had been observing quietly. She shrugged, indicating it wasn't her decision to make. There was worry in her eyes.

“Better me than th’others right? These should be nothing, right?” Austyer asked, and Ace couldn’t figure if he was questioning or stating or comforting anyone, so odd was his voice.

“Simpler.” Furiosa agreed, toneless. 

"They'd be a good start," Gale said, clapping her hands. "Tomorrow at noon, so we'll have the most light. Make sure you scrub clean, all the clay off your skin, yes?"

Austeyr flinched a little, but nodded. 

There was a long moment of quiet.

Rachet had been stewing quietly during their conversation, looking restless and uneasy at the talk of Austeyr being cut on. Finally he spoke up again, all but burst out: “But who won th—”

“ We  _ compromised _ .” Gale said, exasperated.

Rachet looked at Austeyr confused, “Does that mean we both get half a ration then?”

Gale threw up her hands and left the room.

* * *

That night, Austeyr shifted uneasily just outside the doorway, trying not to think of much at all. After Miss Gale and Furiosa had said to stop wearing the paint, he'd let it wear off. It had seemed a waste of rags and water to wash off fresh paint, and if he were honest, he'd needed a little time to get used to the idea of his own bare skin. He'd worn the paint as long as he could remember, to look as much like the others, like Joe, as he could. He'd even applied it on his legs, wanting to look as right as possible even under his clothes.

Then they'd discovered that plain clay helped at least some against the sun, and it looked different, grey and more flakey, but he'd taken to use it nonetheless. He'd brushed off the flakes of dried clay in the evening so he didn't leave it in the Boss' bed, but he'd still been dusty grey with it, gone patchy where bits had rubbed off. 

Now, having wiped it off all careful and thorough, he felt bare and wrong, not at all confident of his welcome in Furiosa's quarters. 

She'd said his skin was shine, but he didn't think she'd ever seen him completely without paint. She’d seemed so intense that other night and he’d felt so raw with how she looked at him; what if that had only been with that bit of clay making him a little paler? She'd seen spots where it had rubbed off by his pants, maybe, but he'd never used water to get the last dusty smears off. 

What if she didn't think it was shine anymore when she saw him? 

"You, mm, going in?"

Austeyr jumped a little at hearing Max behind him. The man's eyes slid over him, took him in, and Austeyr felt his heart pound, but Max didn't seem surprised or displeased.

"Y-yes," he said, but didn't quite managed to make himself move. Max waited, and after a moment, lightly put his hand on Austeyr's back and nudged him forward and through the door.

Ace and Furiosa were already on the bed. From the looks of it Ace had just helped her remove one of her new arms; his big hands were curled around her shoulder to warm and massage the muscles that were sore from the new and different strain they'd been under, and breaking in the new leathers. They both looked up when they heard Austeyr and Max, and Austeyr froze just inside the door. Max moved past him to settle down on his ledge.

Furiosa took her time to look Austeyr over, eyes travelling down his torso, then back up. He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise, but she did not… not look displeased. He wasn't all that confident of his ability to read her face, in this moment, but he did distantly realise that.

"Aus," she said, and held her hand out to him, asking him to help her up, and he shook himself and went over to pull her to her feet.

She didn't let go of his forearm when she got to her feet, instead surged forward, her eyes intent on his. If it were anybody but crew, anybody but  _ her _ , he might have thought he were being challenged to a fight, but he backed up and against the wall where she seemed to want him, breath rushing out of him when she pressed her whole body up against his.

She put her mouth to his shoulder, and he gasped involuntarily at the damp heat of her lips, at the suction, at the intensity of being pinned against the wall like this. She had one leg between his, leaning into him from hips to shoulders. His head felt light with the relief of being touched by her, not reluctantly or disapprovingly but with— with  _ enthusiasm _ .

She hummed and her mouth moved wetly toward his neck, and his head tipped back without any input from him, his hands idly trailing her sides. She'd never much used her mouth on them, and this was completely new, an alien sensation that made his fingers twitch and his breath grow ragged.

Just when he thought he had his breathing back under control she scraped the side of his neck with her teeth, and a bolt of heat shot down his torso to where she was pressed against his hardness. He made an inarticulate noise that made her chuckle against his skin. She drew back and pulled his head down so she could look at him, and her eyes were gleaming with laughter, she was  _ grinning _ , and Austeyr made a helpless little sound at the sight of her.

"Been wanting to do that without getting a mouth full of paint," she chuckled. When she backed away from him he almost stumbled after her, immediately missing the warm press of her body against his. 

He followed her down onto the bed, and she lightly pressed him down onto his back. Took one of his hands and placed it on her thigh, patting it twice, and he nodded, understanding the intention. If something was too much for her, she'd pat or tap twice on one of them, same as they would do during sparring. They each knew they could do the same, but that had never been needed. His pulse picked up at the thought of what she might have in mind to remind him so explicitly of the stop signal.

"You made such nice sounds just now," she mused idly. "I want to hear some more."

He opened his mouth to ask what she meant, and then she was trailing her blunt nails across his chest, down to his stomach, and he made a strangled little noise.

Some indeterminable time later he was in the middle of the tangled pile of them. Furiosa draped half over him, petting his chest in an approving sort of way. Ace and Kompass had ended up holding him down while she chased some kind of wild squeaking laugh he'd produced when she licked the back of his knee.

Once his dignity had gone entirely out the window she'd made sure he was still being held down and then she'd used her mouth on his cock, something none of them had ever done. He'd probably made strange sounds and he thought he might have begged her, not for anything in specific that he could remember. He could remember her satisfied smirk all too well though, didn't think he'd forget  _ that  _ anytime soon. 

He'd be embarrassed about the sounds he'd made if he wasn't still basking in the glow and the awe of receiving her full, undivided focus for so long, that he'd been made to just lie back and and enjoy instead of thinking or doing. Right now he could not bring himself to care about anything he'd done, with Furiosa pressed into his side and his entire body a limp, twitchy mess of raw nerves and utter contentment.

He couldn't even begin to care about the prospect of being cut on tomorrow. 

* * *

Furiosa was naked on top of Max, bright eyes fixed on his. His heart beat with wild joy at the way they were wrestling, measuring themselves, and at how strong she was. 

His left hand on her throat, and her eyes danced with arousal as he used his grip on her to pull her down and toward him, bringing her mouth close enough for a hard kiss. His hips pumped up into her, and his free arm wrapped around the small of her back, keeping her close.

He groaned into her mouth, hips stuttering, and opened his eyes too look into hers. He didn't think he was squeezing her throat but her body was going relaxed, and her eyes looked glassy, and—

Max woke with a gasp of horror, his hips still twitching sticky mess into his pants. Clawed around until he managed to turn over on… on the ledge in Furiosa's quarters. Found the shapes on the mattress in the low light, Furiosa safely tucked between Austeyr and Kompass. 

Then he slowly, carefully got up and edged around them to the door, needing some time to himself. Max managed to get out of the room without waking anybody. Closed the door quietly behind him.

Then leaned against the wall in the corridor and clawed at his face, strangling a shout in his throat, trying to dispel the memory of the dream. He wanted to give her everything she deserved, every gentle caress and careful touch he had to offer, every bit of pleasure he could coax out of her body. Why the hell was he dreaming this— this  _ horror  _ of overpowering her, trapping her to take his pleasure? And now, of all times, with everyone tense and distracted and distressed.

He definitely shouldn't touch her if this is what his dreams made of it. In fact, he shouldn't be in the same room as her right now. He looked around, heart rate slowing a little at the realisation that he didn't have to be, that he had options. Kompass had said to pick any of the rooms down this hallway. 

Max hurried towards them like the desert itself was chasing him.

* * *

The warboy turned up at noon as instructed, body almost vibrating with something that seemed to be part excitement, part tension. Gale was pleased with having him as their first candidate for the surgery; his lumps were well placed for it, and he had both the social standing and the social skills to speak with any other warboys who might consider going under the knife. Plus, having the first be one of Furiosa's own indicated the Imperator's trust in the new medical team, and Gale knew enough about the Warboys to know that didn't count for nothing. 

Without any clay, Austeyr's skin was the colour of healthy earth in the Green Place, and Gale cursed Joe all over again for making the boy believe his skin shouldn't be seen.

Feng was readying her tray of equipment, her assistant fiddling with the makeshift mask they would use to administer laughing gas. Gale knew she could have probably managed to remove an uncomplicated tumour herself, but Feng had been trained as a surgeon, so she was happy to cede the scalpel to the older woman. Gale would be assisting, learning, they had agreed on that. Her main purpose here today though was to speak to the warboy and put him at ease. They were all scared of the Soundless and especially of Feng, and Feng had no love for them; Austeyr seemed all too glad to focus on Gale and ignore the Soundless as much as possible. 

"Gas?" he frowned when she explained to him what they would do. "Why?"

"So as you don't feel it happenin'."

"No need," he said decisively. "I can handle it. Better me than-- Organic never-- he'd just give ya something to bite on. No need to waste stuff on me."

"If I had a local, I'd use that," Feng said without looking up.

"Local?" 

"Numbing just in the place where it's needed. But I don't have any, and I am  _ not-- _ " she made an angry tsk sound, "Organic. If you don't want the gas, we're not doing this."

Austeyr's eyes grew wide, and he looked at Gale as if seeking support. She remembered some of the stories she'd heard about how the 'Blood Shed' had used to run, about how Furiosa hadn't wanted to go there and hadn't wanted to leave her crew there overnight, and suddenly had a notion what this might be about. 

"You won't be out long. Soon as the cutting and stitching is done the mask comes off, and you'll wake up not long after." She added, "I'll stay with you the whole time."

"Not keeping you on the ledges longer than needed," Feng added. "Soon as I'm sure everything’s stitched up well and holding, you can go back to the barracks. Or your Imperator's quarters."

"Oh."

After a long moment of consideration he hopped up onto the big stainless steel table, his eyes seeking out Gale again. 

"You'll witness me, right?"

Gale thought about trying to explain that he wasn't going to die, but he seemed so earnest, hesitant to ask this of her but clearly thinking it important, that she just nodded. She patted his hand in an automatic gesture that surprised both of them. 

"I will."

"Good." He laid back on the table, contents of his pockets jangling as he stretched his long legs. "Cut away."

Feng spent a little while palpating the lumps, positioning Austeyr's arm this way and that so she could reach easily. She explained to Gale and her assistant as she did, let them feel too. The tumours were surrounding his armpit, and Gale wasn't surprised there were inhibiting Austeyr's motion - they pressed down into the muscles and like as not were compressing nerves.

"Are you gonna cut them all away?" Austeyr asked, with detached curiosity. 

"I don't know how long it'll take, so I'm going to start on this big one," Feng said, much less sharp now, as if some old ingrained bedside manner had finally connected to this setting. "And see how it comes. If needed we can do a second session to get them all."

Austeyr nodded in understanding. 

"All right, we're going to put the mask on you, and then I want you to list all your tools, starting with your favourite."

Gale stayed at Austeyr's shoulder, making sure the warboy could see her as he faded in the middle of describing a knife he'd inherited from another warboy. 

* * *

"Hey."

Austeyr blinked up into Furiosa's face, confused how he'd come to be lying on his back on some kind of cold bench. He felt groggy and a little sick, and his side hurt. 

_ Oh. That.  _

"Told ya not to come down, Boss," he said, tongue not quite cooperating. The whole point of him getting cut on had been to show the other warboys that it was no big deal. Furiosa coming with him would have defeated the point. He wasn't sure why she would have wanted to, anyway. 

"When have I ever done what you tell me?" she said, but it sounded fond, not admonishing. She ghosted the back of her fingers over his cheek and it felt like an echo of her touches the night before. He felt his face grow warm, and she smiled. A little deviously, he thought. 

Furiosa stretched, turning to somebody out of his range of vision. 

"How'd it go?"

"I had to leave some smaller ones, but it went well enough. Motion ought to be easier now."

"That's good. When can he leave?"

"In an hour or two. I want to keep an eye on things a little longer."

Furiosa nodded, patting Austeyr on the shoulder. 

"I'll send somebody to get you, yeah?"

He nodded muzzily.

A while later he was awake and getting bored, and the old woman Feng came in without Miss Gale this time. She looked at his side again, poking and prodding. He tried not to grimace at the sharp pain, but she made sounds as if she wasn't unhappy with what she found. It was easier to ignore the pain knowing that the whole thing was successful, that he could choose to be here instead of one of the others taking the hit, and let them all know what to expect.

"Nothing strenuous for a week, you hear me? Especially no lifting your arm over your shoulder."

"Nothing strenuous," Austeyr repeated, eying her a little warily. 

"Yeah, strenuous. Do I need to define that?"

"Nothing with stren, so, no strength," Austeyr reasoned. He wasn't stupid. 

"Yes, just lie back and think of england," the old woman said sharply, "like you make your Imperator do."

Huh. So that's what it was called. Furiosa made him do that just yesterday. It’s nice that they have a word for it now, he’ll have to tell the others.

* * *

The Sisters and the Vuvalini stood in front of the wall in the Council room, watching as Deka and Vicky applied the last of the oily paint mix. The new symbol of the Citadel was as high as Deka could reach, its bold white lines dominating the space. 

"I feel like there should be a ceremony."

"For the Warboys?"

"For everyone, for the Citizens we’ve let in, for the crafts boys and the repair boys and the greenthumbs and all the others who were here but hidden by War, but especially for the people outside. Kind of like a crowning symbol of all the changes."

"Ohh," Cheedo perked up. "We can ask the warboys to paint it on the rock face, over the skull!"

The skull symbol had been attacked with fervour, but it had been carved so deep into the rock that it was still visible. Especially with how deep it had been carved into everybody's memories. 

"It'll be a sign visible for miles that things have changed here."

A tree, protected in a circle, they thought. Maybe it won’t be pristine, drawn over the scars like that, but it’ll be perfect.


	39. Carabiner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Carabiner (biner): Forged aluminum devices of various shapes (oval, D, etc.) with a spring-loaded gate through which a climbing rope can be threaded, used to connect to protection or to provide connections between parts._
> 
> “Water,” she called, then looked back to the rest of the crew and held out her hand, “Give me a canteen.”
> 
> They looked startled. "He's gone feral, Boss. Why'd you wanna feed a feral water?"

_I wish Noxious wasn't dead, so I could kill him_ , Janey thought, watching as they came upon yet another stalled vehicle, a bloody body nearby. The warboy who was driving her car, Miles, got quiet, and she could feel the tension in all of them racheting up. They'd found two cars so far, with two sets of dead warboys. It had been bad, from the look of the bodies.

Max had warned her it would be bad. She hadn't taken his words, and especially the look in his eyes, lightly.

She'd thought she was prepared.

One of the cars had been stripped down, all its useable parts loaded on the trailer. The other had needed little more than fuel and some blackthumb affection to start, and had joined the convoy. There'd been an argument about who got to drive it, and she'd pointed at the warboys who had taken the lead on the approach, had examined the dessicated bodies of Noxious' crew.

Of course, now the rest were clamouring to approach the wrecks they found, hoping to be awarded with a car too.

The body they came upon was a little distance away from the car, as if he'd ran after Noxious' crew and then collapsed. It was - there were bite marks, and less dried blood than there ought to have been.

Janey swallowed.

"Careful," she called to the warboys who were approaching the vehicle. The other warboy, the one who'd come out on top, might still be alive. She wasn't sure if to hope for that or not.

Check glanced back at her. "Yes, Boss."

Limo spread out the net they had brought and hadn't needed so far.

Janey waited, watching them approach the car, satisfied with how careful they were. Warboys had their own way of doing things, but she wasn't unhappy with the way they were following her directions.

There was a dry, hoarse cry and sudden motion, and a moment later Limo had his net around a spindly figure and wrestled it to the ground. Audi and Rims immediately rushed over to catch the edges of the net and weigh it down.

She approached cautiously, rifle at ready, but by the time she got close it seemed excessive. The war boy they’d captured was thin to the point of horror, looking like a skeleton without any paint at all, and he was easily weighed down by the crew fresh from the Citadel.

“Water,” she called, then looked back to the rest of the crew and held out her hand, “Give me a canteen.”

They looked startled. "He's gone feral, Boss. Why'd you wanna feed a feral water?"

"Because this could've been any of you and,” She wasn't sure they would understand yet that, “I would do this if you were there instead.”

She was stared at blankly, until gazes seemed almost ripped away to look over at the captured war boy, as the crew spread themselves to circle them protectively, even if it made Janey feel like she’s been thrown into a match in their so-called Pit.

“Keep him down,” Janey ordered, as she approached slow. "And turn him face-up."

The warboy hissed weakly, his face covered in dried blood. She trickled some water into his mouth and he sputtered as if he had forgotten how to swallow, so she stopped, and went slower, trying to balance between being too much and being too cruel.

“Breathe,” she told him gently, as the war boy tried to drink faster, laid her free hand on the curve of his head, the netting a web between them. “There’ll be more, just breathe and take your time.”

She heard the murmuring of her crew.

"Alky, Stick, examine the car," she tasked, "Miles, park up the convoy. We'll be here for the night."

An hour later the warboy had stopped fighting, his eyes clearing a little. She'd fed him little swigs of water, trying to make sure his stomach wouldn't rebel and throw it all back up.

Her crew was avoiding him. She couldn't blame them. It was hard to ignore the other body a little ways down the road.

The canteen was still mostly full, not daring to give him so much so fast, and Janey took the chance to crumble some salted bean paste into it and shake it up thoroughly. Gale had suggested it before she’d set off, after Janey consulted with her over Max’s worries. When Janey tested it, she found it a mostly thin, bean flavored liquid. It still had some small chunks but maybe if she poured slowly, they won’t escape the lip and become a choking hazard.

It took most of the night before she got enough into him that he was able to speak, pushing the canteen away. Though he still refused to say his name. She thought the others must know, but they wouldn't tell her his name, as if they thought he'd lost it and he agreed.

He was sitting quietly by now, freed from the netting, a miserable looking man with sunken eyes and ashen beneath his sunburn. There were two war boys at all times with their eyes on him, something which Janey had not ordered but found useful all the same.

She finally checked on her lookouts and then settled down to sleep, thinking it was nothing.

* * *

It wasn’t nothing.

Janey stood up from her crouch, with a tired sigh. The war boys were looking at her face, and then back down and around them, some seeming to ignore them to scan the horizon. Lookouts.

“So needless to do so,” she muttered, and saw some twitch at the words as if listening.

At her feet was that nameless war boy, body cold, face bloodied, hand curled around a sharp rock.

"Why didn't you stop him?"

Some of her crew shuffled uneasily. Audi finally said, "He was quiet. Didn't want us to know until it was too late."

"That was his friend," said Check, gesturing in the direction they'd found the first warboy.

Oh.

Her car was nearby, and she headed towards it, and from the corner of her eye she caught some motion.

But it was only her crew, peeling out of the area behind her, being folded into her wake. The closest one saw her looking and held out her rifle. She accepted it to sling over her shoulder, nodded to him in acknowledgement, using the motion to sneak a look at the others. Janey wasn’t sure she could read them, but some caught her eyes and nodded, pensive looking.

* * *

"Boss?" Miles said the next day, and when she looked, offered her a belt. She accepted it without thinking, examining it. It didn't really look different from the belts they all wore, worn and used but in decent nick.

"Not bad. Put it with the other salvage," she nodded, handing it back. She didn't much like that they were stripping the bodies they found, but she was practical enough not to leave functional clothes to the desert or the scavengers.

"Y-yes Boss," Miles said, expression doing something complicated and hard to read under his clay.

He did as she said but caught what appeared to be a sympathetic shoulder pat from Razor.

Her patrol had gone out with two cars, and started its return with seven. Good thing they'd brought enough fuel. The warboys were ecstatic, so many of them having been designated driver and lancer. She suspected most of these boys would never have had that chance, before.

She kept reminding them that it might not last once they were back at the citadel, that the council might decide the cars needed to be used differently, but she didn't think that was sticking much at all.

The last stop before they reached the Citadel, already standing invitingly on the horizon, she was offered another belt, and this time Janey paid more attention to the warboy offering it than the belt, remembering the odd byplay with Miles. It was Check, one of the older war boys the others looked to for guidance sometimes. He was standing up straight, proud, but she could see the eagerness in his eyes as she accepted the belt from him.

It had a little fringe of bits of chain and strips of red cloth on the front.

Oh.

This was not salvage, and thinking about it, the one Miles had given her probably hadn't been either.

"Just— want ya ta look right, Boss," Check said, shrugging as if it didn't matter.

It did matter. This looked like they'd made it. She remembered seeing a red neckcloth on one of the bodies they'd found. She could see the others pointedly not paying attention to them in that obvious way that meant she was centered in the midst of eavesdroppers.

"All right, then."

The drivers and riders on the other cars buzzed excitedly among themselves when she belted on what they'd made. And, with the new belt about her hips, when she straightened it was like every man in her crew did too.

She glanced over the men, and decided that whatever flame this was, it was probably better not to fan it. She'd already told them the cars might not remain theirs, perhaps it was best not to acknowledge what they were doing here too much.

Probably just excitement from being out on the road. Most of her crew had been employed in menial tasks around the Citadel or in the infirmary, when Joe emptied his warboys out onto the road. A lot of them had tumours, or old injuries that hindered them in some way, some were shorter or slighter or daugthersons. They were probably just excited to have been taken on a mission like this.

Their return to the Citadel went smoothly, her crew proudly taking care of the cars and the salvage while she went up to the council to inform them of what they'd found.

She ran into Ace on her way up, and his mouth crooked in amusement as he took in her appearance, her belt.

He sketched her a quick salute.

"Hopeful warboys, huh?"

"They'll forget about it, I'm sure."

Ace raised his eyebrows, but hummed agreeably.

(Later, she'd think back on this moment and laugh.)


	40. Protection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Protection: Process of setting equipment or anchors for safety. Equipment or anchors used for arresting falls. Commonly known as Pro.
> 
> _"Put the knife away," she said, slow and clear like a command he couldn't help but follow._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of body horror in this one. Max's head is not a nice place
> 
> Also sexual (mild) knifeplay

Austeyr was heading back towards their table with Kompass, the both of them with bowls of food, when he saw Kompass pause, and veer off.

The other man stopped at another table and stared at one of the Mill Rats thoughtfully, forehead furrowed. A new Rat, by the looks of him, as not stringy like the older ones who’d been working on the mills for many hundred days under Joe. Austeyr looked at Kompass in confusion, not certain why he’d stopped here, and truthfully the man looked uncertain.

“You... had been on standby, right?” Kompass asked.

“What's it to you,” the Mill Rat returned belligerently, shoulders stiff as if trying to make himself large. But it just made it look like he was trying to hunch away.

Kompass’ eyes tightened at the tone, but he seemed to toss it away from him with a brisk shake, straightening as he came to some decision. 

“ ‘Preciate it.” Kompas said. He dropped half a biscuit and an entire lizard on the Mill Rat’s plate. 

The other man flinched badly, and looked around at everyone. His table stared back at him. It’d reminded Austeyr somehow of their Wastelander for some undefinable way, even if smaller and muted.

“I didn’t do it for him— they, they didn’t even need me,” the twitchy man replied.

“I Witnessed it,” Kompass said gruffly, “you hadn’t needed to--”

“What’s going on?” Austeyr interrupted.

“For your lump cuttin',” looking suddenly awkward, Kompass waved at the man he’d been apparently trying to feed, “he was on standby. Realized it just now.”

_ A bloodbag _ , Austeyr finally understood, one that had probably been asked to volunteer, given how the new Tribunes were about these things. Like with the secondary breeders, the Tribunes had freed the bloodbags once they’ve arrived back at the Citadel. But unlike the breeders, the bloodbags had almost immediately disappeared into the Wretched. Apparently at least a couple had sought work with the Mill Rats. Hiding there instead.

Except this man had come forward, shedding his safety, to help him out. Austeyr hadn’t even thought about it, hadn’t even realized.

It had always seemed normal, that there should be bloodbags to provide what was needed from their bodies. Warboys gave their bodies to war for the Immortan, milk mothers their bodies for milk, bloodbags their bodies for blood. That was just how it  _ worked _ . None of them had ever really questioned it. Looking back on it now, Austeyr didn't know why not. Maybe they'd all been so focused on their own survival that it was easy to ignore them— 

Much like it had been easy to ignore the milk mothers, the breeders, the greenthumbs up top, and everyone else that’d been folded into. Into War. All these people that had been emptied into the Warboys so the Warboys could empty themselves for Joe.

It was too much. Austeyr took one of the lizards on his plate and dropped it on the twitchy man’s plate as well.

But he stared at it with the kind of wary confusion that made Austeyr’s stomach squirm. 

And Austeyr recalled the look on Max’s face sometimes, when he was in Furiosa’s room, when they came up to him with food, when they sat near him. Like they were offering something to him and he couldn’t understand why it was given so freely. He recalled that Max had been a bloodbag too and he wondered with a sudden rage how much of Max’s madness was the wasteland, and how much more the madness was magnified by being at the service of the Organic Mechanic, being held at the Citadel, being bled into war boys.

It’d seemed awful, all of a sudden, to realize how much had been given up for them, but not by Joe, never by Joe. And staggering to realize how much fondness and faith Max must have for Furiosa to even make the effort to stay. 

Austeyr exchanged a glance with Kompass, and the other man’s face was understanding, and grim.

“What‘s your name?” Austeyr asked, because to be remembered they needed a name.

“Why?” The man asked, still with wariness.

“Don’t you want to be Recognized?”

The bloodbag looked at him like that was the worst possible thing, like it was a betrayal of some sort when all Austeyr wanted to do was to honor him.

“Come on,” Kompass muttered, and tugged them both to the crew’s tables. But he couldn’t help looking back.

The bloodbag was watching them go in that intense way people did when they didn't want to turn their backs on a threat.

* * *

“ I don’t get it,” Austeyr protested to Furiosa once they got to their table, “why wouldn’t he have wanted to be  _ known _ ? To be appreciated and admired?”

"Think about it, has being noticed by Warboys ever brought him much good?" She wasn’t sure exactly what the man had said to her crew, but she knew the idea of wanting to be forgotten and ignored would be foreign to the war boys. Furiosa turned her head to look thoughtfully at the mess hall entrance where Max was just walking in. “I don’t think it made it into the Tenday stories, but Max didn’t either. Didn’t tell me his name until… until maybe none thought I’d see another morning.”

There was a stunned pause as her crew looked between her and Max, and she wasn't sure how much of it was due to Max’s silence and how much to the mention of how near she’d wandered to Valhalla. They pressed in a little closer on the benches. 

Furiosa waited for some further reaction from them but they all seemed pensive, needing some time to think. The mealtime was one of the most silent in her memory. She glanced over at Ace’s table and found herself glad that the strangeness didn’t spread; him and his crew seem upbeat and rowdy. 

* * *

Ace tried to keep his face peaceful and his shoulders easy even though he was watching his crew rowdy themselves into crew bonds. At least this was going smooth; he still wasn't sure what was going on with Max. It was causing him no end of consternation and time wasted in thought.

The man had joined them soon After. After the world changed. After they had to find new ways to understand Furiosa, to fit together. The wasteland man had been wary of War Boys - he'd been a bloodbag, Aus said, so maybe that was understandable - but he'd grown used to them, hadn't he? He'd even slept soundly in the same room. He looked at Furiosa in the same way Ace knew they did, with a mix of awe and respect, was protective of her the same way.

But suddenly over the last few nights he'd sometimes leave to sleep elsewhere, and he knew it was upsetting Furiosa, who was clearly hoping he'd join their sexing, or at least sleep with them.  


It wasn't like there wasn't space on the mattress. They'd used to have many more than six.

The thing that stuck like a bone in the throat was that Max was clearly interested. Not everybody was, Ace had met enough Warboys who'd only traded paint with fellow Warboys, or had no interest at all. But Max watched Furiosa, when they sexed. Max watched with twitchy fingers that wanted to reach out, but didn't. Ace couldn't figure out why the man had been so direct as to lick her neck, that one time during dinner, and he could not have missed her reaction to that, but now wouldn't reach out. His gearstick worked, from the look of him when he watched them from his ledge. 

And since the Boss clearly hoped he would, Ace felt compelled to… well, he generally at least  _ tried  _ to give Furiosa what she wanted, so why not here?

* * *

He didn't even need to arrange much. Oti was running the new crew through some drills, and Ace was trying not to pressure by lookin' all the time. Rachet was assisting Miss Gale today, Kompass was training pups while Austeyr - four days since his lumps had been cut - assisted. Furiosa had wanted to spar, and Max and Ace had shared a look that said 'better go, at least we'll make sure she doesn't overdo it' and gone with her.

Maybe their worries had been overmuch, because since she'd been well enough again that Miss Gale agreed she could spar, she'd been acceptably careful with herself. Ace had gone a few slow rounds with her, given her a workout she'd clearly enjoyed, while Max had stretched and used some of the training things the warboys used to get stronger. 

Now the three of them were in her quarters, Max and Ace companionably cleaning weapons while Furiosa washed off the sparring sweat and dust in the little alcove. When she returned she was wrapped in her long length of drying cloth, looking like she was still a little flushed from the exercise.

She sat down next to him, the warm skin of her shoulder against his, and disassembled her pistol.

After a minute, Ace reached down to grab the whetstone and casually dragged the back of his thumbnail from her knee up to her thigh. He heard her breath hitch, saw the corners of her lips twitch into a smile.

She bent over her pistol cleaning with the kind of deliberate intent that suggested he was welcome to try to distract her.

_ Fine, Boss. Challenge accepted.  _ He knew sparring had made her feel good, her body finally beginning to respond as it ought to. Sparring made her feel strong, powerful. It always used to get her in the mood and apparently it still did.

He finished sharpening his belt knife, satisfied with the fine, smooth edge he'd put on it. Turned toward her and carefully drew the flat of the blade down her bicep, shaving some of the fine hair from her skin. Her breath hitched, and her hand stopped its work. Ace smiled and turned the knife, letting the side of the point drag lightly from her shoulder to her elbow. She shivered, her disassembled pistol forgotten for the moment, and he let the knife skip to her knee, letting the tip lightly trace the same path he'd made with his nail.

She sucked in a sharp breath, and Ace was vaguely aware of Max stopping his work, watching them with a mix of alarm and fascination.

"Put the knife away," she said, slow and clear like a command he couldn't help but follow. He put it to the ground on the far side of the mattress, picked up the various tools and let them join the knife. Then Furiosa put her hand in the back of his neck, and he knew where this was going, there had only ever been one option since the first touch, but it was the kind of grip that left no room for thought. A moment later he was on his stomach between her legs, and she was unwrapping the drying cloth from her hips, baring herself to him.

Then she picked back up her cleaning brush and continued the work on her pistol. Ace smiled against the soft skin of her inner thigh. He pressed his face to her curls and inhaled, grinning inwardly at the twin gasps he heard from her and from Max.

He knew what she liked, how she liked to be built up, and went to work, gently spreading her to lap at her folds. She managed to keep working on her pistol for a few minutes, though it sounded slow and not at all like her usually efficiency. At one point she slid her hand down his arm, seeking out his hand, and he thought she wanted to hold it - she sometimes did - but instead she pulled it up to her stomach to place the barrel in it so she could shove the cleaning rod down the bore.

He could hear a small choking sound from Max's side of the room. Ace raised his eyes to meet Furiosa's.

"That," he said, lifting his chin, "was rude."

She gave him a sharp, challenging grin, and he felt a swoop in his stomach, the old thrill of having her full focus on him like this.

_ Right _ . 

Clearly it was time to stop playing nice. He dove back in, and she gasped.

Soon she'd dropped her work, and he felt the restlessness in her hand as it roamed over his shoulders, his head. She didn't like feeling exposed while somebody licked her out, preferred bodies surrounding her, to lean against, to hold her, to anchor her, to shield her, to shove at.

Ace glanced up to see Max staring at her face, and made an impatient noise. What was he waiting for? Some elaborate invitation ritual? A Warboy saw a need for his help, he just jumped in.

Furiosa's nub landed on Ace's head and he chuckled as she pushed him back to where she wanted him. He went back to drawing breathless, needy little sounds from her, and then finally he heard shifting.

Max moved from his ledge to sit down next to Furiosa, and she drew him close against her side so she could lean. He looked a little.. Ace didn't know. The man clearly wanted to be there, had probably wanted for weeks, but looked like he wasn't sure he could really have this.

Ace tensed his tongue and teased her clit with tiny little circles, making her arch and shake. He worked two fingers into her and her thighs tightened around his head, and he moved to wrap his arms around them, giving himself space. She laughed breathlessly and clamped harder, and he always enjoyed this struggle between the three of them; her body, her mind, and him. Enjoyed feeling the power in her body, how strong she was and how whole. He growled against her and she gasped, jolting wildly, and then Max finally saw what was needed and drew her against his chest, anchoring there with a hand flat against her breastbone.

Ace hummed his approval and she let her head drop against Max's shoulder, letting out a long, breathy, decadent sound full of appreciation. He could feel her take off the brakes and let herself  _ go _ , knowing she was being held safe; it only took a few more hard licks, a few more curls of his fingers, for her to shake over the edge, hips bucking hard, body straining in Max's hold.  


Ace managed a few broad, soothing licks before she blindly groped for his head, grabbed hold of his ear with trembling fingers, and tugged him up. He grinned and crawled up so he could pillow his cheek against her stomach. Her grip on his ear relaxed and she petted idly at his head, breath still racing.

He let his hand drift over her legs, her stomach, caressing her as she calmed. When her skin began to chill, he pulled a light blanket over her and stretched out next to her, loosely cupping his hand around the elbow of her left arm.

Max had his lips against her temple, occasionally making pleased little humming sounds. He had both arms wrapped around her, and she still had her head tipped back onto his shoulder, her eyes now closed.

Ace didn't know if she was aware of it - he wouldn't put it past her - but between the sparring and the orgasm she was well on her way to falling asleep on the guy.

A few minutes later he heard the man make an awkward little 'uh' sound as he realised it too. Ace wondered if he wanted to leave again, like he'd done the past few nights. 

"Give it until she gets to the deep sleep," he advised softly, when he could feel the man getting antsy. "We can usually move her then."

The fool, as she called him, managed to stay still for just long enough for that to happen, and then was steady as they eased her down to the mattress. Furiosa sighed and murmured "Will you stay?" without really waking up, and the man froze. Then when Ace moved to grab the blankets tossed to the side, he felt a hand press down on his shoulder.

Max looked back at him steadily, clearly asking him to stay in Max’s place. When Ace glanced at Furiosa curled by herself on the mattress, sleepily searching for the warm body that had just disappeared, he found a blanket shoved into his hand.

It dawned on Ace that this was the other man asking him to take his place. Like a division of labour. Cuddling with Furiosa wasn't exactly an essential role if you asked Ace, she could sleep perfectly well on her own, but it was oddly endearing to realise the other man wanted her to have somebody next to her. He appreciated it was a new step for the Wastelander to ask for assistance. It was only afternoon, but one of the others would probably be happy to take his place by the time Ace himself got restless. 

Ace hoped however that Max wouldn’t take this as an excuse to slip out and stew in his own feralness. 

“Bettin’ she’d like you to be here when she wakes, I’m thinkin’.” He said, eyeing him calmly, “wouldn’t mind it, my own self.”

The man couldn’t seem to meet his eyes.

By the time he’d stretched out next to the Boss and draped the blanket over them both, Max was already sketching restless jerky circles around the room. He’d sometimes pause at the window, and from there his gaze would skitter towards them. Once he’d circled around and dropped a fresh canteen of aqua-cola closer to his reach. Another time he’d made a restless spiral as he picked up the half-cleaned gun and finished it off while walking, and tucked it under the edge of the mattress.

He’d pause, sometimes, head tilted as if listening, and during these times too his gaze would not focus until it landed back on Furiosa.

The fool settled eventually back on his cushion on the windowsill, half an eye trained on the land surrounding the Citadel, half an eye trained on the door to their room.

Ace didn’t know what it said about him that he was starting to find it reassuring. He thought that Max might stay this time.

* * *

Rachet followed Austeyr into the room. Nearly crashed into the other man when he halted right past the doorway.

“Wh—”

“Shhh,” Aus hissed at him, and pointed towards the mattress.

_ Oh, Boss’ sleeping _ . Ace was with her, and he nodded towards the window ledge where the man from the wasteland sat. Austeyr went over quickly enough, but Rachet hung back and carefully closed the door. 

Max looked up at them a bit awkwardly and shrugged at their looks, and when the displaced air hit his nose Rachet blinked because he  _ knew that scent _ . He looked over at Ace and Furiosa on the mattress, at the way the Boss's body was curled languid and heavy against Ace, and interrupted into Aus’ ramble.

"Helped sex up the Boss?" he whispered as they settled around the man with their evening meal.

"Oh hey, yeah," Aus said, with a look at Furiosa. "Was wondering when you'd be up for that."

Max’s eyes narrowed, glancing at them both with the impression of having his back up against a wall.

"She's smiling in her sleep." Austeyr simply shoved against the man’s shoulder, “Like we don’t know she prefers to have at least two involved. Hey, pass me the biscuits.”

Rachet distributed the mealworm biscuits Miss Gale had given him, still looking at Max. The man remained tense, but finally accepted the biscuit Rachet offered him, nibbling on it uneasily. 

“You don’t _have_ to, you know,” Rachet said, because Max looked.. Rachet wasn't sure. Not like people usually did after nice sexin'. But he wasn’t exactly shocky or shut down either, like warboys would sometimes be after a Use from one of the other Imperators. He was not really sure what the man was even thinking and figured it couldn't hurt to ask. Austeyr could interpret the grunts for them.

“ Boss is pretty adamant about that,” Aus agreed. " _ Only if you want _ . We had some crew who didn't." Then he continued leadingly, “but you seemed...?”

Max grunted with agreement, an unwilling and uncertain huff of air. 

Austeyr nodded and hummed in reply. Max looked longingly at the door. 

“Is there anything…” Rachet couldn’t help asking, and he had to ask because he couldn't make sense of this, “Do you need— I mean. You don’t seem settled.” Just a bunch of contradictions and none that he could figure out how to make work.

The man just shook his head and concentrated on his meal and Rachet hadn’t felt this frustrated since Furiosa first got heartsick. He just wanted to fix this. 

Maybe they should get together, make him a new brace? But Max’s looked like it was functioning. 

Austeyr opened and closed his mouth several times as if he didn’t know what to say, and that worried Rachet. It rarely happened.

“You’re welcome here, y’know,” stumbled out of Rachet’s mouth, “You're crew. We trust you.”

Max’s shoulders rose up around his ears a little, which was generally a bad sign. Rachet looked at Austeyr helplessly because he didn’t know why his shoulders were doing that thing, but the lancer looked just as confused.

They finished up and got ready for bed silently, giving Max silent pats on the shoulder as they handed him some extra cushions for his perch on the ledge, and eventually the man went to sleep. 

* * *

He’d drifted awake some time ago with the moonlight. They both did.

Furiosa watched him steadily until he went to her, magnetized. She looked up at him, eyes shining with excitement, the gleam of them reflecting the blade he was holding up for her to see, in question. Her eyes caught on it, followed it, and there was a kind of bright intensity to her that almost took his breath. He thought she said yes, and could he, and go on, except her lips didn’t speak. Her eyes did though, he guessed, he felt?

"Better not move," Max told her, leaning his free hand down on her shoulder, keeping her pinned in place with his hand and his hips. 

She grinned fiercely, eyes fixed on his as he lowered the blade to the side of her neck, lightly trailed it down the soft skin below her ear, down along her collarbone. She shivered, muscles going still and soft. Relaxing. Trusting him to do this, and he— he couldn’t wrap his head around— it was too  _ much _ —

His cock pulsed with the idea of it, that he could do this, wield this much power and be safe, be trusted. She sighed as he lightly, so lightly trailed the tip of the knife down to her breast. 

Her nipple drew into a tight bud, and his hand trembled, and then—

Blood.

It was a tiny drop, but he drew back in horror. Her eyes were wide and staring at him, and the cut grew larger because he couldn’t stop pressing down, breaking skin like the surface of a bubble, and the tension against his knife was  _ satisfying _ . The blood kept flowing, growing with great pulses, more than a body could hold, until his whole vision was red with it and her face smeared with it, twisted with hurt and that look in her eyes—

He woke up, gasping, and scrambled off the ledge, sending a water bottle to the floor. He couldn't even care if any of the warboys woke up as he fled the room. The moon was high.

When Max hit the hallway, he headed towards where Kompass had pointed out Ace’s room. Ducked in, closed the door, and backed against it. Shaking.

He eventually found himself sitting.

He wasn’t sure how he got there.

* * *

Ace woke up a little, in that muddled way of newly not-unconscious, as Furiosa shifted in his arms.

“...Max?” he heard her ask. 

"It's me, Boss," he murmured, like he'd done so many times before. She turned and laid her head on his shoulder, arm curling over his chest. 

"Mmm. Not the boss of you 'nymore," she sighed against his neck. He chuckled and stroked her back until he fell back asleep. 

* * *

Max avoided the bed in the empty room, eventually settled on the window ledge with his back to the side wall. He kept seeing her face before him. 

He had seen the shade of that look only once before, in the morning before the women prepared to kill themselves riding off into the Salt. He knew that they were going to their deaths and she knew it too, and she looked at him like she’d expected no less of him.

But had hoped for more.

He didn’t know how to be more. How to wipe the disappointment from her face. 

He knew how to survive. 

And that was by disappearing.


	41. Alpine Start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Alpine start: An early morning start to ascend before the sun softens the snow or to return before nightfall._
> 
> "Sorry. I'd thought it would help, for him to be with us when we— See how nice it can be."
> 
> Furiosa sighed, glancing down, shaking her head a little at herself. She really shouldn't have had any hopes on that man taking her up on her offers. Any offers. Salty ones or otherwise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for an extended exploration of the Citadel's early years through the POV of a wife. Not particularly graphic, but maybe headsquirmy

“The surgery will go on as scheduled.”

“But the blood volunteers disappeared for some reason, even when we offer double rations,” Capable protested to Feng, “I can't find anybody anymore. Would you really go ahead even with no standby’s?”

“Every surgery has been going smoothly,” Feng scoffed, “And War boys heal fast.”

Capable made a face, jaw set, "I'm going to keep searching. You can test for blood types easily, right?"

“Tch, yes,” Feng dismissed, “Though it would be far easier just to check the markings on bloodbag’s backs, no need to repeat another’s work.”

“Exactly. We’re not repeating _anyone_ else’s work; let’s not repeat Joe’s mistakes.” the Tribune said firmly, “We're going to find _new_ people, who actually _volunteer_ as donor."

“Though you were all about reclaiming the useful bits of the old Citadel, even the parts that are unslightly,” The old woman’s voice was flat, as she straightened from her work, looking angry and disturbed that she was angry. “Are you only choosing the parts that make you feel good about yourselves, instead of that which’ll actually _work_?”

Capable stared at the old woman, shoulders set in a hard line, and took a long, slow, deliberate breath. She tried to remind herself that Feng, too, was a product of the life she'd lived. To remind herself not to react to Feng’s words, to not challenge her on details and semantics and get caught up in her and Miss Giddy’s long running argument, but to draw her line in the sand and stick with it. "People are not things. If they don't want to be donors, they won't be made to be, like Joe made them."

"Well, you look for new bloodbags, then. I'll go ahead with the surgeries. Haven't needed a bloodbag so far, anyway."

* * *

Max drifted in Toast’s wake and felt small behind her, absurdly. She was striding through the garage caverns like it was all her space when Max couldn't even seem to find space inside his own skin.

“We could use someone willing to survey east, if you’re keen on drifting off into a fog again,” Toast snarked around her toothpick, as she pointedly avoided looking at him, shuffling through the barrels down in the storage rack with a furrow on her forehead. “Janey has gone over the path you’d taken parallel to the mountain, but most of it’s barren now.”

“Chewed dry.” Max suggested, eyes drifting towards the wide mouth of the garage, searching for the horizon. He needed to get out there. Or, rather, away from here.

“Like that,” the Tribune nodded, “Guzzoline siphoned off, salvaged picked over by Noxious’ crew and Janey’s, most edibles for miles around eaten by those War Parties.”

“East is not barren yet.” Max asked more than stated.

“The areas in the opposite direction of the mountains, yeah, that’s the thought.” She _tched_ , “It’s not Buzzard territory in that direction but Joe was nervous about something. Double-timed the scouts roving around there.”

“And now?” Many things have changed without Joe, and Max didn’t know the state of the patrols.

Toast banged her fist against a guzzoline barrel and it rang hollowly. She grimaced. “Most are like that.”

“Citadel needs guzz,” Max grunted.

“Going to have to make a decision about that soon. We have enough to fortify ourselves here, keep the cranes working and the aquifer going for a while longer, but soon it's either that or run for supplies from Gastown.”

“You mean if to make War on Gastown,” Cheedo murmured, slipping out of the shadows. “War pups still need more training, War boys still need more experience, and the new crews are still working out how to work together. None of the others of the Citadel are much keen on fighting and we shouldn’t pressure them to, I think.”

Max knew that the last they’ve known of Gastown was that their leader was dead and perhaps some Imperators tore off in that direction to claim the site. There was no news of who’d won or if some Imperator remaining behind at Gastown had taken control. They could well be walking into a war zone while attempting to trade for fuel, let alone the fact that the Wasteland made any transportation of goods a tricky business.

And they didn't have a war rig anymore. One of their trucks loaded with barrels would be far more vulnerable.

“We’d need to make War on Gastown just to get gas, but we don’t have the gas to make War,” Cheedo said glumly.

“Mmm, alternate source?” Max figeted.

“And you would know of a reliable one?” Toast raised an eyebrow at him while Cheedo made a questioning sound.

“Might know of a place where we could, hm, Barter. For some. I could leave today.” Max shifted, not thinking of…

Not _thinking._

“Barter?” Toast narrowed her eyes.

“Leaving already?” Cheedo asked voice low. 

Max opened his mouth slowly to somehow explain, but realized there was no way he was willing to say why he needed to be away from the Citadel.

"Just… getting restless," he mumbled.

* * *

"Have you seen him today?" Furiosa asked, trying not to feel guilty over eating her breakfast. Ace was sitting opposite her, not allowed to eat anything to prepare himself to be cut on. He'd said it was fine, he didn't want her to go without, but she didn't like the idea of it. It felt too much like Joe, having lavish meals in front of hungry people.

"I think he's with the Tribunes," Ace said. Looking wistfully at her lizard. "Sorry. I’d thought it would help, for him to be with us when we— See how nice it can be."

Furiosa sighed, glancing down, shaking her head a little at herself. She really shouldn't have had any hopes on that man taking her up on her offers. Any offers. Salty ones or otherwise. It had just… been nice, with Max there. She'd wished for that.

She still did.

 _How stupid, really._ That she had four crew members surrounding her at night and that she was disappointed with the thought that Max wanted no part of it.

"Think it scared him off, yesterday.”

“It shouldn’t have?” Ace felt his mouth go sideways with wryness, “What, do you think he’s going to just disappear off into the desert because of some sexing?”

“He’s been known to do that.”

“Sexing?” Ace asked doubtfully.

Furiosa rolled her eyes. “I meant _disappear._ ”

"Least _I'm_ doing my best to stick with ya."

She was abruptly reminded of what was about to happen today, as if she could possibly have forgotten. “When is Feng expecting you?”

He glanced at the angle of the light coming in through the window-openings. “Maybe right about now, I guess."

Furiosa felt her face going tight.

And Ace simply nodded, and gave her that crooked smile of his. And Furiosa felt her gut drop in that way when, two heartbeats past the moment a decision became irreversible, she realized just how stupid that decision really was.

_What if something goes wrong?_

But she swallowed the words.

“Let me walk with you,” she said instead.

* * *

She remembers clean floors, white walls, enough supplies as to never run out. New things needed and simply appearing by truck, arranged by others, paid for with money. _Paper_ money. She remembers tile, and sinks of trustworthy water, sterile face masks. She remembers holding out her hand and somebody holding ready a clean, new glove to sink her hand into, to be used once and then thrown away. She remembers it being her final year of surgical internship and being the jewel of her class, genius at every technique put in front of her, planning on specializing in cardiothoracic because it gave her the most intense surgeries.

 _There’s nothing quite like holding a heart in your hands_ , she said when asked.

(What no one ever saw is that the genius was more than just talent, just steady hands, or just her being a model of her race. What no one ever saw is that her nights were late and her days off were quiet and her breaks were spent pouring over texts, journals, papers, looking for a challenge.

What no one saw was that she wished she had someone in her year who was just as driven, but not put off when she was brilliant or abrasive.

Christina’s lunch table was often empty but for her.)

The young woman didn’t exactly _not_ pay attention to the world, it was just that the problems in front of her were so pressing. Competition was fierce for a job, rent was pricey, and not only that, she wanted to be renowned, she wanted to be Known. It was what her mom immigrated for, to give her the best opportunity and support system, and she wanted the world at her feet.

She’d thought that, with the skills she’d gained, there would be no doors closed to her, that it didn’t matter so long as her life was secure. There would always be a need for doctors. And perhaps the world was falling to pieces in the corners of far off countries, but Australia was safe, with abundant resources and water and self-contained. Christina lived in Sydney with a good-sized community of distant relatives who all knew each other and everything seemed fine.

At a Christmas garden party one warm and rather balmy night that last year, she met someone. A Joe Moore, jolly and charismatic and so enamored of her when she spoke of her accomplishments and of the papers she planned to write. She’d thought him only a military type, what her American cousins called a jarhead, but he asked intelligent questions and even though he didn’t know her specialties he still seemed interested and followed along as best he could.

She'd never met somebody who liked her sharp sides like he did. He visited as often as he could between his duties and her schedule and they made it work mostly because he respected her time and her other commitments.

Meanwhile Sydney… it started having blackouts. They started having trouble maintaining power during that next summer and in the fall they lost several people in ICU due to generator failures and fuel shortages. More and more burglaries started happening, and then riots.

Chinatown was hard hit, windows smashed of shops and homes, vulgar graffiti accusing them of not sharing, of being greedy, of taking their jobs. But at least everyone remained safe.

There was talk of travel, maybe going back to the mainland, maybe going to America, but before more than one or two families had left, the airports closed down. Shifts at the hospital became more and more chaotic, people fighting, desperate for painkillers, for medicine. Staff members failing to turn up for their shifts without explanation. New stock not arriving and the suppliers offering no replacement. And even then she didn’t start feeling trapped until.

Until.

It was only his hand on her shoulder that let her know she was shaking.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as she watched the makeshift pyre roar.

“We should go,” he said, as he helped her pack.

“It’s not safe here,” he said, as she stepped into the jeep.

(somewhere in the world, the sky glowed as trees bent over from a concussive blast, as the earth became sour from the toxic rain carried by the wind)

She found herself performing increasingly bizarre surgeries, makeshift and cobbled together things from what tools she has for injuries she’s never seen before, diseases that have no ilk.

 _Even as the world falls, they will always need doctors_ , she thought. She still held their hearts in her hands.

Joe called her marvelous and shiny and asked for her opinion when they travelled with his unit, dodging raiders and thieves and what were increasingly called tribes though they’d no indigenous peoples in their group.

“We need to be self-sustained,” she said, “A bulwark.”

“Some place with water deep in the earth, uncontaminated by the acid rain." He agreed.

“A castle with a moat?” The man who their enemies started calling the People Eater complained. “Ridiculous. Impractical.”

“No,” she says, “Not a castle, a fortress. A _Citadel_.”

“I know of a place,” Joe said, and rolled out a map. “I’ll claim it so we can honeymoon there.”

“A honeymoon.” She said flatly. “That would imply we’re getting married.”

“Yes it would.” Joe said airily, “You have a problem with that?”

“Not particularly, no, but you _could_ have asked.”

"I just did."

She huffed, but she was mostly amused, glad because it solidified his support for her, and her place next to him in this ghastly world. And she was fond of him. Joe got things done, things she had no patience or inclination for, rallied people around him, and created a point of stability and sanity that was rare and getting rarer. Wouldn't be the worst reason people got married.

Moreover he respected her, respected her brilliance, and she allowed it to overshadow some of the things she saw, the way he'd occasionally tell her one of his men wasn't worth the supplies to fix him. The doctor in her was annoyed at not being allowed to _try_ , to defeat the odds, because snatching victory from the jaws of defeat was what she loved to do. But in this new world, in this wasteland, supplies were scarce. It made sense to triage, to spend supplies only on those most worth them. 

Once they’ve taken the Citadel and he gained a new name, their armies regrouped and started making it liveable, and she watches them scurry about from the peak. _Joe is leader of this place_ , she thought, _and he calls me his wife_. And when he came up behind her and put his arms around her, when they talked about plans for crops, for fuel, for supplies for her infirmary, she convinced herself that she owned him too.

Refugees started coming, especially once Gastown and the Bullet Farm got claimed and stabilized. And once everyone stopped being on the run, they started fucking like the world was ending.

“We don’t have the supplies for them, not all these people and the children,” she snapped, and stabbed her finger angrily at the figures. “We need more tunnels in general, more space. And some way to police them. There’s too many incidences of violence and rape; at least leash your _dogs_ away from the girls.”

“We can have separate quarters for the women, somewhere they can be safe,” Joe agreed, and she calmed a bit, “And you’re right on the supplies, we’ll have to close to newcomers unless they have some useful skill, at least until the crops are in.”

As the seasons passed, life at the Citadel stabilized, and when she heard the rumors about what was happening in the cities, she thought it was perhaps the most stable place left in the world. Maybe there were never enough crops to be able to allow the wretched people below to be provided a place, and maybe they had to make the women’s quarters permanent because Joe's army boys were terrible at taking no for an answer and keeping it in their pants, and maybe it felt like society had stepped back several hundred years into one of those old asian period pieces she grew up on, tribal and warring, though without all the fancy costumes. But. It was a place where people worked and ate and she healed them if they got injured, providing they were worth spending her ever-dwindling supplies on.

Her disquiet at discovering she was pregnant was almost soothed by Joe's pleasure at the prospect of getting a heir. He held her close, big hand covering her belly.

“I bet he’ll be as smart as you,” he praised, and she smiled.

She didn’t say she hoped that the baby would be as strong as him; strength was all fine and good but it was skill and brains that were more lasting.

Joe blinked at her, waiting, and then dropped his hand.

She lost the pregnancy at three months, and she looked at the blood in dismay. Despite all her knowledge about the human body, failing at this hadn't even occurred to her. She'd never failed at anything before. It even made her a little angry, and when in half a year she was pregnant again, she agreed readily to take things slower. She became her own primary client and was pleased at how willing Joe was to appease all her cravings and make sure she got the best of things, the best of food, the best of care, books and journals to keep her mind active, and he even found another medic to both hold down her infirmary while she was gone and to help her out what she couldn’t take care of for herself.

The pains came in the middle of her second trimester.

"It's the air." Joe said, when he saw the disfigured fetus she passed. "I'm going to make a place for you, where the air is filtered. I shouldn’t have let you been exposed to everything, we knew about the nukes going off and I’d promised to keep you _safe_.”

She looked at him tiredly, didn’t even know quite how to parse his anger, feeling drained.

“I can't lose you,” he cried out, “What would I do without you? You're the only one I have.”

Getting up carefully, she limped over to where he was sitting with his head in his hands and placed her hand on his shoulder, feeling awkward with the action. Exhausted. He was so distraught, even more so than she was and she was pissed off that all that time and work was _wasted_ , that the miscarriage hurt so much and that her legs were shaking and that she was crying for no damn reason, and _why was she this upset at—_ she hadn’t even particularly _wanted_ kids. But she felt awful, and Joe said it was his fault and that he’d fix it and she believed him.

The huge room he built for her was beautiful inasmuch as anything in this wasteland was beautiful, the glass dome letting in more light than anywhere in the Citadel. There were many plants, fruits growing there and it had been years now since she'd had regular access to fruit. She got the best of everything.

The door was shut so the air would stay pure, and guarded so his Boys wouldn't bother her. She needed rest and calm to grow his baby, he said. Only Joe and the new medic visited her, asked her advice, discussed the Citadel with her. What to do about the food, about the population, about making sure the newly termed war boys wouldn't try to grab power for themselves. She’d sunk herself into reading about politics, agriculture, and alternative medicines; low cost methods with high yields, acupuncture, hypnosis, herbs. Things that she’d dismissed before for being too hand wavy except now supplies were precious and they’d try anything if it _worked_.

A surprising amount of it worked. He brought her interesting cases or men he’d liked fixed and she went ahead and practiced on these bodies because it wasn’t like _they_ were a scarce resource. She’d gotten so good that it felt like she could trace their energies by feel, sense the hot and coolness as the body’s biomechanical system regulated itself through the laylines of blood and lymph, could almost see the swirl of it on the surface of skin, and know exactly how to fix the blockages. It’d honestly distracted her for long enough that it took her awhile to realize that—

"I am going crazy on my own here," she told him after two months.

"I'll find you some company." Joe told her.

Her name was Ophelia She'd been living in the women's quarters, and Joe must have picked her with care, she was smart and sharp. A poet by trade, a musician by hobby, and a sociologist by schooling; so, not of much use except for entertaining.

Ophelia exclaimed about how nice the dome was; much nicer than the women's quarters where she'd been living, where the door was always barred against the warboys. She hadn't gotten out much apart from on the organised 'date nights'.

"It's these times where they bring us out and I guess it's a little like a party? Warboys are there and… well, people pair off a lot.” She laughed, but towards the end it sounded a little strained, “not much of a way to date, right? And it’s not much like any of them are worth marrying.”

“It’s not like finding a CEO or a lawyer is any good in this age,” Christina pointed out, “And as for doctors, Angus is a bit…”

“Yeah,” Ophelia nodded, “kind of a neckbeard.”

Joe visited them sometimes, made it like a dinner party. He'd found a piano somewhere that made a halfway decent sound, and Ophelia loved to play on it for them, beautiful music that seemed somehow alien in this place. For those nights the world didn't feel so wasted. Joe was always very charming, and it reminded her of parties they’d had what seemed like another world ago, making both her and Ophelia laugh helplessly. It always reminded her of why he caught her attention, and he would stay the night with her in her bedroom.

It was only after a few months that she noticed he mostly only did that during certain stages of her cycle.

He was so happy she got pregnant again, she could almost be happy too.

And when four months later she miscarried a blob of misshapen flesh she was glad for the opportunity to scream.

“I gave you _everything! Everything_ you wanted.” Joe shouted, “Everything you needed I got for you, how is that you just—”

“You think I _wanted_ this?! You think I wanted to keep—!”

“ _Failing_?” 

Christina sucked in a breath because she’d thought that at herself.

“Because that’s what you’re doing, _this one simple thing_ that you’re designed for!”

“How could you— that’s not—” she’d never thought that he’d be one of those types of men, he valued how brilliant she was, so how—

“It’s women’s _role_ , how can’t you see that?!” He fumed, eyes wild, “Men provide and women give birth, strong dams breed strong foals, it’s the natu—”

“Don’t even _dare_ compare me to an animal for breeding!” She flung her arm at the window, “And what in all this is natural, what? Tell me. None of this is natural!”

“Don’t make excuses for how you—” Joe paused, “Maybe that’s it, maybe it’s you. Maybe you’ve turned sour, like the dirt, you certainly aren’t sweet.”

She’d raged at him until he stormed off, as Angus scratched a line into his hand with an inked needle.

“What, counting our arguments now?”

“Something like.” he agreed.

Joe didn't visit her for what felt like a long time, left her locked in her pretty tower room with not even his attentions and gifts to divert her. Sometimes Ophelia was collected from the dome room and brought to Joe, and the first time the girl was flattered and flustered, but soon she started coming back quiet and uneasy.

Hopefully it was just that she was worried that Christina was angry or jealous. Joe had always been a decent enough lover, and Christina might be angry with him still, but it was hard to imagine - no, the woman was just sensitive to her mood. Christina wasn't angry or jealous, though being ignored was starting to strain on her.

Ophelia hardly ever played the piano anymore. Their rooms were very silent, with maybe the rustle of leaves and the way the air quivered with heat during noontimes. Christina looked at her references and felt she could almost see the plants breathing, though maybe that was just the effect of this world.

At night the desert was starting to swirl with color, a radioactive blue.

“Do you see that?” she asked Ophelia absently one time as she watched it, when the silence got too much.

“See… see what?” Ophelia asked tentatively.

“Blue, the whole desert glows blue. And look, _there_ , paler and redder where those Wretched huddle.”

“I don’t see anything,” Ophelia replied. “It’s, it’s just dark, night time. Are you sure… Um, I can get Angus to check—”

“ _No_. I don’t want him here.”

And then it was silent again, and Ophelia edged back to her room. But Christina knew what she saw, she wasn't crazy, she _wasn't_.

After three months it was announced that Ophelia was pregnant.

Christina felt… nothing much. With everything feeling like the world’s gone back in time, she’s almost not surprised at Joe getting a second wife, hell, maybe get him a third. Maybe now Joe'd get his heir and things would go back to the way they'd been, when he'd talked to her, valued her, asked her advice. He certainly seemed in a good mood. When he began visiting her again, apology coming awkward off his tongue, she welcomed it; made an effort to be less sharp like he’d made an effort to admit he was wrong. He rewarded her with his attention, with sometimes letting her come down to the infirmary for a particularly interesting medical case or if one of his Imperators was injured and needed the best care Joe could offer.

Frankly, being down there for the first time in, was it a year? Two? It was hard to remember out here, where seasons were meaningless and all days looked the same. Maybe it was longer than she thought, because she was shocked at how bad conditions had gotten since her maternity leave. Diseases seemed rampant, along with malnutrition and, was that self-mutilation? It looked like a _design_ , and like the war boy was pleased with it.

The infirmary stank worse than anything she’d ever encountered, worse than any GI bleed even if the wound had necrotized, and she scolded Angus for it. But he just mumbled it weren't nothing like a proper hospital. Christina couldn’t disagree with that, nearly gagging from the smell and she was very glad that she wasn’t down here during her morning sickness.

She’d found herself breathing a sigh of relief when she was back in the filtered air of the vault, when the vault door closed behind her, and made it a point to be nicer to Joe when he visited that night during dinner.

For a while things were good again. He praised her intelligence, said often that he still hoped for a child with her smarts for his heir. By the time Ophelia was entering her third trimester, fitting awkwardly behind the piano, Christina agreed to try for another child.

"This one will make it, I can sense it," she said as she lay next to Joe in the darkness of her bedroom, her hand on her stomach.

“What can I do to help?” he asked.

"I’m going stir-crazy. Ophelia hardly talks anymore." She complained, “I know you’re busy but—”

“I’ll find someone.” Joe promised.

Cadence was very pretty, and very skinny. She looked around the dome as if it were paradise, and Christina spent weeks closely supervising her eating and activity, trying to make sure she got stronger without making herself sick. She'd been living on the ground outside the tower until she'd caught Joe's eye, and was almost embarrassingly grateful to Joe when he visited.

They were both there as Ophelia labored, struggling, but Christina could already sense it. _Something felt wrong_.

The girl died within minutes. Lungs too small to breath on its own.

Ophelia went even more silent afterwards.

And Christina was not surprised that Cadence became pregnant. She was not surprised when they were joined by Constance. And Clever. And Tincture.

And then Corpus was born, small-limbed and twisted, fighting for air.

"That's no good to me," Joe said when he saw her son. "He'll never make it. Not even worth nursing up."

Christina had never understood what people meant with 'mother instinct' until right that moment. She cradled her fragile little son closer to her chest and turned away from his touch. ”I may not have wanted children, and I still don’t like them, but I’m not a _sociopath_ ,” she hissed.

“Are you saying that I am?”

“I’m saying you’re acting like one!”

The other wives fluttered anxiously.

“You’re just distraught,” Cadence soothed her, turning quickly to Joe, “She’s just, it’s just post-partum depression, she doesn’t mean it. We’ll sort it out.”

"We're all upset, we had such hopes for your son," Clever said quickly.

"You can't mean to waste energy on that little mongrel. Not _you_ ," Joe said, ignoring them. "You’re too practical, I've always liked that about you. Have you gone _crazy_?"

“Call me crazy then, call me toxic like the wind,” she hissed, curling protectively around the baby. “Call me _feng le_.”

The other wives crowded in and separated them with soothing words towards Joe and begging words towards her, to _wait_.

 _Nobody wants to be back there, among the Wretched, starving, thirsty_ , they pleaded with her, _and how would you care for your son?_

 _Think of your position_ , they whispered. _You're the honoured first wife, he loves you like nobody else, don't throw that away._

She thought about it, as she held her tongue and as Corpus grew.

But the name stuck.

The name grew on her as her anger did, as she discovered how far she’d let herself be shut away and corralled and controlled, and realized how much power had been taken away from her, and how much independence. Realized how much she’d been blinded as she watched the wives cower in front of Joe and come back from his bed in tears, wondered how much of Joe’s love and fondness was a lie.

Feng concluded: All of it. But she leashed her anger because. Because...

Corpus was a sickly child, and it took all her knowledge and resources to nurse him past his toddler diseases. But he was smart, he spoke early and learned quickly. It gave her wry satisfaction that Joe's wish had come true; he had a son with her smarts, but without his strength.

He survived the three half-siblings that made it to full term, none the less. She'd lost count of all the miscarriages between all the wives. Three women had died in childbirth, Ophelia being one of them.

One day, when Corpus was five, Joe decided he might have a use for the boy after all, and had him collected each morning to spend the day in his presence. He was only returned to Feng late at night, babbling about what he’d seen before falling into an exhausted sleep.

The purpose she'd filled her last few years with abruptly disappeared. Not knowing what to do with herself, she tried to go out to visit the infirmary for the first time in years, and discovered she was no longer allowed to.

She held her tongue, a giant weight on her lungs, when one of the newer wives, Mercy, pulled her away from the door. They stood by the large windows and she tried and tried to breathe, wanting to tear it all away. All of this wasteland finery was around her but they were only _chains_.

“How much,” Mercy asked quietly, “Do you know of climbing.”

Feng took a moment to take in the side of the Citadel stretching out below them, the craggy mountainsides full of shadows and hidey-holes. She looked over.

Mercy’s eyes were full of steel, Feng thought, and full of anger that matched hers, “I know enough that I can learn it.”

“And I know you know enough of the Citadel for us to have someplace to go.”

“You’re not wrong,” Feng replied. She looked at Corpus' little bed, the books he no longer had time or energy for. “But I don’t think I can yet…”

“We’d need the to prepare, anyway.”

When her son started talking like Joe, she knew it was time.

They took with them a couple of the newer wives who’d hated their place, or were about to be discarded per Joe’s newest orders of Three Tries, and she found herself leading this group of women because they’ll always need doctors, they’ll always need skill, and they’ll always need a good amount of ruthlessness.

They’d needed it when Joe was in power and they’ll still need it now that Joe’s dead, and the only thing she regretted were those useless years where she’d forgotten herself.

Feng centered herself back to the present.

On time, as ordered, the old Warboy walked into the Infirmary. He looked around warily but did as he was told, removing his heavier items, and lying back on the metal mortician’s bed with its useful fluid gutters.

Feng watched with mild disgust as Furiosa hovered around that War boy while they put him under. Despite the world ending and despite all those years she was still holding hearts in her hands.

She went to work.

* * *

"Boss, you don't have to. I know you hate—" Ace said, eyeing her as she paced beside him. She looked tense, like there was a roiling storm just under her skin and it was taking work to contain it. 

"I do, and I will," she snapped, "and I'm no longer your _Boss_." She flinched a little.

Perhaps her words came out sharper than she'd intended, but Ace knew her feeling behind them and also figured she was just being sharpened by their location.

The Blood Shed— the _infirmary_ , it was called now, still vaguely felt the same. The walls and floors and ledges had been scrubbed down and chalked, the cages removed, and the Repair Boys had managed to hack out an additional channel for air so it didn't hardly smell of blood and death anymore. But something about the quality of light still made the place cold even at high noon. And Ace was unable to forget the Organic Mechanic, with all the revelations.

"I'm the one who's asked you to have it done."

He knew what it cost her to come here, even now.

"That don't mean you have to—"

She held up a hand, and he dropped the subject. It wasn't like that anymore between them, these days - he knew he was under no obligation to obey, and moreover, that she would not dismiss him from her bed, or stop caring about him, if he didn't. But he'd known her long enough to know when to stop trying to protect her from herself. If she had gotten it into her head that she needed to be there when he let Feng and Miss Gale cut at his tumors, she would be.

He wasn't the first to undergo this process; there were eight war boys now with neatly stitched wounds instead of lumps. Austeyr had healed well, so far. His stitches had been taken out the day before, and though he still needed to keep calm for a few days, he was thrilled with what he could feel so far, of his renewed mobility. Ace _was_ the first to be worked on who had tumors so closely against his throat though, and he knew this was not without risk.

Miss Gale had explained it in detail; that she thought it could be done, but that he might bleed out, or be paralyzed, or that they might have to opt for not removing everything if it was too dangerous. He nodded; the Boss knew what he would want in each of these scenarios.

Furiosa glanced at him, looking like she was trying not to shift her weight restlessly.

"You don't have to…"

"Boss, if it were you, and I asked, 'cause I didn't want to lose you sooner'n needed?"

 _"I don't know that I have the right, but I am asking you to go through with it," she'd said. "Because I'm— I'm greedy and selfish and…” And ‘_ I want you here _’, he had seen in her eyes._

He'd known almost from the start that she had rather kept him as crew than see him go to Valhalla, but there was still a part of him that lit up at being asked to stay with her, at being _wanted_ like this. Not even as her crew member, her ace, but as her _friend_.

"Valhalla can wait," he shrugged. If there even was a Valhalla.

She closed her mouth with a click, and Ace reached out to curl his hand around the back of her neck, kneaded the muscle until she sighed. He lightly knocked their foreheads together. 

Miss Gale gestured for him to stretch out on the metal table, and put the cup with the gas over his nose and mouth.

* * *

He counts until he blinks, and then the everything becomes slow and heavy, the daylight’s changed.

His neck really hurts, he’s not sure why.

There’s shouting.


	42. Yard Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yard up: To pull on the rope to make upward progress, often with assistance from the belayer.
> 
> _When he next woke, Furiosa was standing a few metres away, talking with Feng and Miss Gale in a tone of voice he hadn't ever heard outside the cab of the War Rig, after she'd watched crew die._

Max was suddenly sitting by him. 

Ace blinked slowly. He hadn't been asleep exactly, he remembered a mirror shining bright sunlight down onto him, and loud voices, and he remembered it hurting, but it had all seemed very far away. He remembered the Boss' hand in his, her face always in his field of vision. She wasn't there now.

"Hey," Max said. "Hey, you're, you're all right." He nodded, hummed. "Furiosa's… gone to handle something. Yeah. She'll be, ah, she'll be right back."

Ace tried to lift a hand to feel at his throat, but the other man was holding his elbow, a thumb on the inside, and it stung, and Ace's mind was slowly ticking over. Max. Tube. The tattoo on the wastelander's back. Blood.

"Lost a bit of blood," the man said, and Ace knew he needed to think about this later, because his brain was not running on all cylinders right now. He felt slow and heavy and cold, and time slipped away from him.

The next time he tuned in, he could feel warm pressure against the top of his head. He knew it was Furiosa before he dragged open his eyes, sitting there with her thigh warm against his scalp. He could see part of Max's arm around her, and hear the crunch of green leaves being chewed.

"--don't care, just eat them all," she was saying. "Gale says they'll help you recover."

Ace tried to swallow and made a pained grunting sound. His throat hurt, and breathing wasn't feeling too easy, his throat all wrapped with bandages. He still couldn't reach to feel at it; they'd wrapped a blanket around him, both arms tucked inside.

Furiosa lightly stroked his forehead.

"Hey... " there was something in her voice he wasn't used to, something soft and tremulous and undone. "Hey." 

She didn't seem to know what else to say, and he smiled vaguely, not used to seeing her without her composure. Her eyes looked like she'd been out in a sandstorm without goggles, and she looked  _ exhausted _ . Max's broad hand curled around her shoulder, and Ace was glad for Max, glad that he was there for her when Ace couldn't be. 

He wondered why the hell the man had been willing to give him blood though. Had Furiosa asked and he just not felt able to refuse her? Would she… would she really do that on his behalf?

Ace tried to think on it some more, to figure out the right words to ask such a thing. Something short because this throat felt like there were knives inside and his face felt strange. Before he could settle on anything, sleep swallowed him again.

When he next woke, Furiosa was standing a few metres away, talking with Feng and Miss Gale in a tone of voice he hadn't ever heard outside the cab of the War Rig, after she'd watched crew die.

_ Did something happen to one of the others?  _ Ace blinked and tried to orient himself.

"I want him up in my quarters."

"Fury, if he does bleed again we need him here, immediately. Your quarters are too far away. Nara and I are going to be right here to look after him."

_ Were they talking about him? _

"If you're keeping him here I'm staying too."

Ace twitched. It would have been a larger movement but exhaustion dragged at him. For her to volunteer to stay in this place… he shifted a little, in an attempt to settle the idea into some sort of sense.

"Ace?" Max leaned into his field of vision, something a lot like concern on his face.

Ace couldn't move his right arm at all, the muscles in his shoulder screaming, but the left hand he could get out from under the blanket with some great effort. He pointed at Furiosa, looking exhausted and frayed at the edges, then at Max, then to the corridor leading away from this place.

"You want me to, hmm, take her away?" Max looked puzzled. "Woulda thought you'd—"

Ace cut his eyes side to side in a strong 'no', and Max nodded.

"She does need sleep," he conceded. "Been a stressful day."

Ace gave him a very dry look, _if she needs sleep, why is she still here?_ He thought between the two of them they'd arrived at a semi-working system of making sure Furiosa got what she needed, plus or minus some grunting.

Max gave an amused huff of breath, lightly patted his left shoulder, and got up to join Furiosa and Miss Gale. 

Ace couldn't quite follow the low-voiced conversation that followed, but it ended with Furiosa leaning into Max's side, looking like she was feeling the injuries that weren't yet completely healed (if you asked Gale) but were completely fine (if you asked Furiosa).

"If you need me again, send for me," Max said to Miss Gale.

"You really shouldn't—"

Max gave the healer an intense look, her mouth closing as she measured him, and she finally nodded.

"Fine."

Furiosa pulled away from Max before they left, coming over to look at Ace with an expression he couldn't decipher. She seemed to want to say something, but didn't, and finally she only learned in to press her forehead against his. He could feel her trembling. He blinked slowly in acknowledgement, and then flicked his gaze to Max, who nodded, and gently steered her out of there.

Ace watched until they turned the corner and then watched the corner where they disappeared until at some point he drifted off again.

  


Sometime after, while they woke him to get some thin soup into his systems, Austeyr popped his head in. “Ey, Max sent me down, we got the Boss all settled.”

Ace raised a hand in acknowledgement and turned it into a questioning wave. Apprentice just raised an eyebrow, but continued determinedly spooning soup into him. Ace tried not to grimace every time he swallowed. 

“Well she’s been like that ever since you’d gone under the knife, split her time between here and hovering over us all in her quarters.”

An eyebrow lifted without Ace’s prompting and he made a motion,  _ go on _ .

“Rachet wanted to check his hanging gardens and she wouldn’t even let him out the window, not like he hasn’t made the climb a thousand times and his arm is doin' much better. She yelled at him like he was a pup or something. Told him not to do this to her today."

Ace wasn’t sure what to make of it, though it seemed odd. He’d been finding his mind muddy with exhaustion when he drifted awake and this time was no different.

Aus awkwardly patted Ace’s shoulder, face weirdly twisted with something that looked like guilt. “Glad you pulled through, we were all worried when the Boss seemed so freaked out. Never seen her quite like that before.”

The Ace blinked. Furiosa had always seemed an immovable pillar to them, steady even when the worst was happening. He’d bet she drove into that sandstorm with a steady jaw and dry eyes. For her to be that upset seemed… Ace didn’t know how to describe it, or why his stomach felt like it was the night of a celebration, where everyone got double rations.

“Maybe ‘cause there’s fewer of us now.” Austeyr murmured and rested his hand on Ace’s shoulder, mouth quirking in a rueful smile like an echo of Ace’s. “Gotta keep us all in one place.”

Ace blew a frustrated breath through his nose. Would be an easier task on Furiosa if that silly Wastelander would just stay in that ‘one place’ instead of shifting so like he’d go right off a ledge if you forget to look at ‘em. Apprentice gave him a frustrated look in return, barely quick enough to catch the spoon back into the bowl, and shook her head, soundlessly getting up and setting the bowl aside.

_ Later _ , she waved.

Ace gave her a short nod, and then arched an eyebrow at Austeyr.

“I know right? Boss’ll run herself ragged like that, if we don’t help out.” Worry seeped into Austeyr’s voice, as the man stared sightlessly at the hallway, “Heard about what happened just after she came back, what with her re-injuring herself.”

_Well that’s what we’re here for,_ Ace tried to convey with a pointed look.

There was a long pause. Ace considered the awful time when Furiosa had been so fevered, when the women first arrived back at the Citadel. He almost couldn’t disentangle the hectic worry from that time from the revelations about Furiosa’s past, and that whole chunk of memory just felt exhausting. He almost felt distanced from his memory of himself from that time, or maybe just the part where he mentally squirmed away from the idea that he’d been so blind.

“Kompass is saying,” a hum, uncertain of welcome but determined, “He’s saying that it’s not just crew anymore, that Furiosa looks after. It’s the whole Citadel, even if it’s a new one to us. So we have to _all_ help out too, especially with her still recovering herself. Stay together.”

His shoulder was given a squeeze and Ace looked up at Austeyr, “I don't know that the Boss would keep her wheels down without you around.” A short laugh, “you know how she takes those turns, given a chance.”

Ace wheezed at that and then made a pained noise as the laughter tried to slip past his throat.

"Aa! Sorry, sorry! Tch, good thing Max decided to delay his next scouting trip when— ah, he musta decided he was needed.” Austeyr cleared his throat and looked down. 

He raised an eyebrow, not knowing that any future run had been any plan of the Tribunes given their state of guzzoline. Which probably meant it wasn’t, and that the feral brought it up. What had that man been  _ thinking _ ? Ace had known there weren't any bloodbags, he'd been told right before the surgery by Miss Gale. He'd taken the risk of bleeding out on himself.

“Repair boys say the Boss barely said a word about you bleedin', just came up all red splattered and shocky-looking to where he was workin' on a car, and he was chargin' down here."

A surprised noise escaped him, and Ace winced at the sharp pain in his throat. He'd… volunteered?  _ Why? _

Furiosa had explained, about bloodbags and how it was treating people like things, just as bad as what Joe had done to her. Ace could understand that even after that, Max might have wanted to give Furiosa his blood when she was dying— who wouldn't want to keep Furiosa alive?— But to keep Ace's old engine running?

"Anyway, they're both restin' now. Even if Max is off in his own room." Austeyr turned a worried gaze towards Ace, “You know what that’s about? ‘Cause we’re all stumped to be honest.”

Ace shook his head slowly and paused in thought. And him and Austeyr spent awhile sitting there and thinking together. It was nice, even if they were both still mystified by the Wastelander at the end of it when Apprentice wandered back to try to stuff him so full of soup that Ace pretty much passed out in self-preservation.

The next time he became aware of time, the lamps had been lit, and the mirrors they used to port in light from outside were dark. His arm was immobilised again, but he realised his mind was a lot clearer. Max was sitting next to him again, tethered to him with a line of red. 

The man grunted in hello when he realised Ace was awake, shifted a little like a buttcheek fell asleep. Or maybe the man felt awkward and wanted to disappear but it's not like he wasn’t literally tied to Ace right now, which made Ace realize that he didn’t need to waste time figuring how to say his piece.

“Didn’t realize you were so invested in us,” he murmured. 

It came out a quiet croak due to the hurt around his throat, but the other man seemed to hear it well enough, given his startled twitch at his words, and his quick, shocky glance. 

"Furiosa'd be—" Max looked uneasy, eyes skittered away, not meeting Ace’s. "Unhappy. If you—"

"She would be," Ace acknowledged. "But I bet I woulda healed just fine…” he paused a moment, speaking not coming easily and wanting to give his words the proper weight, "without a second load of your blood." He understood that this was a big deal for Max, to not only give blood but give it to a Warboy. He just wasn't quite certain why he'd received the honour.

“Slower though. Furiosa—" Max gestured vaguely as if that explained everything. 

"Enough, now," Ace said. "Take the needle out. Yer already part of the crew, if'n you want to be. Don't need to make blood debts." He suddenly wondered if the Wastelander thought to buy himself safety like this, protection. If not with Ace himself, then with Furiosa. 

Max stared at him, and Ace tried to put every bit of authority in his eyes that he could muster, laying flat on his back. Finally Max moved to take the needle out of his own arm, and then the other out of Ace. Pressed hard with his thumb on the needle wound for a few minutes, and there was something reassuring about that ache. 

"If you care so much, why are you slipping out of her room t’sleep? She'd like you to join in." 

The wastelander grunted with what might be acknowledgement, might be confusion. 

“You know she considers you crew, right?” Ace kept at the point. “So do the rest of us.”

“Mmm,” that furrow of confusion appeared on Max’s forehead again, “thought I wasn’t really… part? Of crew. Think war boys would take command from me?”

It took Ace a moment to figure out what Max meant, because, no matter Furiosa’s own blessing, it was true that no war boy would consider the wastelander stable enough to see him as Imperator for long, especially when the man himself seemed to discourage it. But when Ace thought over his question, the phrasing of it, and he thinks it was that word again, ‘crew’, that’d caused so much amusement among the Tribunes.

"No, I mean—" he wasn't sure  _ what  _ he meant, actually. "Her  _ guys _ . Aus, Kompass, Rachet, me. And you?"

Max grunted a surprised sound. 

“ Would you be so quick to offer blood to any others, the rest of th’war boys? Miss Giddy? The vuvalini women?” Ace pressed.

The man reared back. “Mmm, maybe, if they really… needed it. If they were dying…” His eyes said,  _ I would have to think about it, but if they were dying...  _

“I’m talkin’ about this time. This _second_ time, for no good reason but to get my ass off this ledge faster.” _And back into Furiosa’s room_ , they both heard, unspoken. 

Max took a good long look at the tube in his hands.

But he didn’t move much more than his eyes, and that same awkward shifting as he sat.

"Furiosa was, um. Upset. That you'd have to spend the night here."

“ ‘S not like the Organic Mechanic is here. ‘S not like that Feng wants to get on either her or Miss Giddy’s bad side, eh?” Ace peered at Max some more. “Was she actually _that_ upset?” Not that the idea didn’t send a warm glow through him, but it didn’t seem to make sense. 

Max couldn’t seem to meet his eyes. _Not just Furiosa then, mayhap._

"Maybe you should stick around the room for the night, huh? Talk to her for a bit?” Ace cough a little around the healing ache of his throat, “Get the feeling she'll need that. And let them get you warmed up, huh?" Ace knew Max was perhaps closer or more easy with the others. Maybe they could pull something from him, words or some sense of what was wrong, or at least help some. The man was looking grey around the edges, and punched about the eyes with poor sleep.

"I, uh." Max looked at Ace as if startled at his question. As if the man not only never had crew to warm him up but never even had a proper pup pile to know what was missing, or know what to do with one; and wouldn’t that explain some of his lurking on that ledge, maybe?

Ace didn't look away, because there was a tired slant to the man's shoulders that suggested that whatever was on his half-feral mind was about to come out. 

"Dunno that I can—" the man's throat clicked as he swallowed heavily. "I have these— dreams."

Ace stopped himself from dismissing that because they all had dreams and Max knew that, was in the room where some of their dreams shook them awake. Whatever these dreams were they were clearly enough to chase Max from their room and bad enough that Max didn’t think them comparable.

"Oh? Dreams?" He tried to keep his tone neutral, but welcoming.

"'bout touching her, and it all goes—" he gestured vaguely, "wrong."

"Wrong how?"

"It starts good, but then, uh... I suddenly... realise that I'm—" his voice dropped low and small, ashamed. "hurting her." 

Ace had to pause for a moment of  _ hell the fuck no _ , anger and alarm and denial, but then realized the man looked as horrified as Ace felt.

"None of us would let you hurt her," Ace finally said, firmly, hoping it sounded as reassuring as he meant it. "Not ever."

“I don't _want_ to. Ever. I'd rather— But things go… wrong. Around me,” words almost growled, “People die. If it’s not one thing it’s another.”

“Bollocks, people die anyways. You calling yourself the Wasteland now?” Ace snorted, or tried to. It came out sorta like a sniff, “That’s why you have to have a team. ‘S why you're telling me, innit?" 

Max’s head sprung up, to meet his eyes finally.

"So as I can make sure it won't go wrong."

Max hummed uncertainly. 

“We’re talkin’ about it, right? So I can look out for it? Won’t go wrong if we do.” Ace’s throat felt like it’d been scrubbed with gravel but he pushed gamely on, “Worst comes to worse, we’ll dogpile your feral ass until we've got her away from you and take ya down to the Pits. Go a round or two. Clear it up.”

“Isn’t that…”

“A good spar to get it out of your system?”

Max just made a confused noise, but his eyes were thoughtful. “Mm.” Max cleared his throat as if trying to find words.

When after a long moment the other man still didn’t say anything, Ace just said mildly, “Most crew, dunno how it is with you, seem to have better sleep in a pile, less dreams.”

Max nodded in agreement, but grimaced, “The dreams…”

“Are having you avoid something that’ll help you, is that it?” Ace said pointedly.

“Not that simple,” Max growled.

“ ‘s not,” Ace agreed, and at Max’s surprised glance he continued, “Think it was easy when we first started? The thought of showing each other our nightfevers? How weak they made us?”

“Then. Then how…”

“Furiosa.” Ace said simply, tired and only getting more so, and not sure how to explain the slow falling together, the peach liquor and the getting injured and how it was so much easier to be dragged to her room injured and made to stay.

Max dropped his head.

“Just think on it. Go sleep. She’d need...” Ace mumbled and reached out blindly to try to pat his leg reassuring-like. Max’s hand landed on his as if to remove it, but then seemed to change his mind. 

Ace wasn't sure if he succeeded, because sleep reclaimed him. 

His hand was warm.

* * *

"You should drink this," Furiosa gestured at the bottle of mothers' milk in the faint light of the single lamp. She'd shrugged off her blankets, sitting up when he came in, still turning the other man’s words over in his head. 

Max grunted. "Yours."

"I don't want it." she let herself slump with exhaustion. "Drink it?" Her voice sounded small.

"Are you.. hmm.. are you worried about me?"

She gave him a betrayed look, as if asking that question went against some agreement she'd thought they'd had. He opened his arm, offering her an embrace. 

"Can't do anything for Ace. Then I… then you—" her shoulders hunched up small. "—what if I'd lost you instead of him? How can I ask that trade, it’s different now, I don’t have to..." 

_...to be like I’ve had to be under Joe _ , he heard. Max remembered the first glance he’d ever had of her, stiff-shouldered and glaring like the only way to stand her ground was to push everything softer away. He remembered that he'd never even heard Furiosa say the Tribunes’ actual names until Max came back to the Citadel with Austeyr. He’d wondered now and again how much of herself she would have had to suppress just to survive as she’d had, all the care and the worry for her people she’d barely been able to show before, and guessed it was all coming out now like a lanced sore.

There was barely any breath behind her next words, she suddenly had her forehead pressed against his. "Or— or both of you? What if it had been...”

"Mmm," he hummed, wrapping his arm around her. He'd brought her to her quarters in the early evening, because she'd been exhausted from the tension, not to mention running through half the Citadel when Ace started losing too much blood, desperately looking for a donor and overtaxing her still-healing body. From what Kompass said she'd slept very little, and it had been all they could do to stop her from going back down and spending the night on the ledge. 

So he'd gone back down to sit with Ace. Planned on maybe finding a corner to doze in afterwards but the war boy just told him to go back to Furiosa, that she needed him, and it did seem like the other man’s intuition was right. 

It seemed like she needed him to be here right now. And after giving Ace his blood, the idea of getting up now, when he felt so tired and cold, was unthinkable. He still struggled to understand why he'd done it, given a warboy blood after he'd sworn never again. 

“ What if I lost both?" she murmured again. "Lost even more of my crew, all because I was selfish, because I asked him to get lumps removed?"

"But you haven't. Lost us. We're both, ah, both still here." He hadn't even known how relieved he felt about that until he said the words. 

She sighed against his shoulder as if that truth finally,  _ finally  _ settled within her. 

Max told himself he’d try to stay a couple more days. See how… see how it went.


	43. Graunchy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Graunchy: A route (often off-width) requiring the use of unconventional and uncomfortable techniques._
> 
> "What was that?"
> 
> "Is everything okay?"
> 
> "Warboys trying to get in?"
> 
> Marienny hung the shotgun back on its hidden spot not far from the door, and Lizzybe put the heavy bar back over the door.

Treb was walking through the Citadel, on his way to… something or another, something that escaped his mind entirely as soon as he heard it. 

Drumming. 

He hadn't heard drumming in... how many days had it been since they'd rode out with Doof? It was hard to remember, so much had changed. Their big drums had been destroyed in the crash, and neither he, nor Timpani or Clef had felt confident that they were allowed to drum in the New Citadel, on their smaller drums. Not without Doof to say it was okay. Their songs too, that they’d belted out on the way back to the Citadel, fled them as soon as the familiar rocks towered over them.

Music belonged to the Immortan, and only very sometimes to practice. And if you took something that belonged to the Immortan, if he even  _ thought  _ you took something especially if you weren’t one of his full-life Imperators or one of his pale-skinned War boys, you were shredded quick. 

They weren't sure who it belonged to now. 

This Citadel was a new place and they were still feeling out their right to things, what was allowed and what wasn't, under these new Tribunes. It was hard not to feel a little resentful that their one path to music had been taken away. But they weren’t about to test the new order. They hadn't heard about any punishments yet, but that could be a bad sign. Sometimes you never heard about somebody again, because they weren't around to complain. 

Except now it sounded like somebody was testing, because he heard drumming, from several different drums. Plus some kind of string instrument being plucked, poorly tuned, the strings must be worn and he was just dying to see it, his feet followed the sound to its source without his input—

He came to a halt at the door of the Breeders Court. It was a massive wooden door, and he knew it used to be guarded, but now apparently there was a heavy bar on the inside, so the breeders could lock themselves in. Hoping against hope he gave the door a push, hoping it would not be barred now, that he would be allowed to enter and join in with the drumming, but no. It didn't budge. 

Inside the rhythm changed to a challenge and response between two drums, and he could hear the stamping of many feet joining them, his own feet making the response stamps without realising. He leaned against the door and tried to think of any way he could ask to join in. Perhaps ask the Tribunes? Or maybe that white-haired desert woman from the canyon, Gilly, maybe she could put in a word for him? 

He wasn't even aware that he'd started drumming the response call on the wood of the door. 

Until it suddenly opened and he was staring into the barrel of a shotgun. 

Inside was a sudden hush, many women facing Treb, their faces flushed from dancing. He looked around, trying to catch a glimpse of the instruments, he needed to know what they were using, what the string instrument was. It sounded chrome, and skillfully played though he could tell the strings were long past replacing. 

"Hey. Warboy," somebody said sharply, and the woman with the shotgun closed the door far enough that he couldn't see much but her and another woman. She was large with pup, and she was giving him a dark look. As he took in her appearance, she looked him over too, noticed the swirls and dots he and Timpani had started painting on themselves. 

"...maybe not a warboy. What are you doin', poundin' on our door? Breeder Court is closed. Gone. Ain't never opening again."

"I was just—" Treb faltered, because he hadn't meant to pound on the door. "Drumming. I wanted to— can I…?"

"You can't come in here," she said immediately. "This is our safe space, is what the Tribunes say."

"Okay," he agreed, because what was there to say to that? His stomach clenched a bit, sour and empty, and he thought,  _ Why must they hide it away? Why can’t it be shared? _

And then he saw their faces, alarmed and angry. Like they were afraid that the music might be taken away too. Or that they knew what it was like, having it taken.

"Ah. Maybe... some other time," he drummed his fingers on his thigh, hoping he wasn't saying entirely the wrong thing, "You could play somewhere I could join too? If the Tribunes… if they'll allow it?"

It must not be entirely the wrong thing, because she lowered the barrel of the shotgun, pointing it at the floor. Looked a bit surprised at his request. 

"You want to join us?"

He nodded eagerly. "Haven't been able to do much drumming lately, and you guys sounded real shine."

"I'll think about it," she conceded. "Not now though, you hear? No more pounding on our door."

"Can I listen here, though?"

“Just listen?” They looked at him warily.

“I'll sit over there,” he promised, pointing to the ledge opposite the door.

“I can watch him for ya’ll.” One of the desert women from the canyon said from inside. Vicks, Treb thought was her name. "Enough dancing for my knee." 

Wait, if she was here, and he knew she talked to the Tribunes, did that mean that maybe the music was allowed? He wasn't sure how to ask, but surely she would warn them if they would be punished for it. 

Treb struggled to sit still when the drumming started back up, his body wanted to _move_... but this was worth it. He hadn't heard music in _so_ long, it felt like. At least two tendays which was a horrible _forever_. And this was new, unfamiliar rhythms and that intriguing string instrument and the sounds of many voices and dancing feet. 

* * *

"What was that?"

"Is everything okay?"

"Warboys trying to get in?"

Marienny hung the shotgun back on its hidden spot not far from the door, and Lizzybe put the heavy bar back over the door.

The crowd, most of them still a little flushed with the vigorous dancing earlier, looked at her. Some of them were breeders worried things would be forced back to how they used to be, but there were also some from the Soundless, and - what had never happened before - they had brought the girls that had been apprenticed to them, a group of daughters. Theirs were the most concerned faces, their hands full of questions, flickering nervously, unwilling to be seen and ducking far from the door.

"Everything is okay," Marienny said soothingly. "He's a drummer, got a little… enthusiastic on hearing drumming. He'll listen from outside. He’ll not interrupt, he says."

“He better not interrupt!”

“This is ours, this is finally ours, and if he think he can—!”

“But he’s not,” Marienny soothed, understanding their distress. They’ve had to hide this music from Joe, who didn’t think it proper enough, appropriate enough, or refined. He'd punished them for it except when he’d bring one or two of them to the vault to instruct his pale wives, or have the Coma Doof steal the beats and melodies; distort the speed and the pace and make it something only of War. Acceptable only because a man was playing it for the Immortan’s gain. “The war drummer is outside now, promised not to interrupt. Don’t let him stop the party.”

There was some uncertain murmuring, but Marienny nodded to Naaka, who was playing the Quanun board. 

“Don’t let Joe _win_ ,” she looked at them all, insistent, “He’s dead. And we will _celebrate_.”

Naaka started a new melody, and the drums joined in, and soon the man outside their door was forgotten. 

  


When the sunlight ran low, feet sore but elated, they broke up to head to the mess. It took some encouragement for the daughters to be willing to come with them, using the door and the hallways. Most of them hid deep in their robes. When they opened the door they found that drummer war boy still out there, sitting with head tilted and his fingers drumming on his knees in some rhythm. Marienny wondered if they were going to be hearing their own rhythms back on the wardrums, the next time they rode out. 

Vicks looked on, amused, still sitting near the war boy. And when she caught sight of them hanging nervously around the door, she nodded a little to her other side. Where in the shadows sat several others, some pups and a couple children from the Citizens from Below.

Listening with curious faces.

"Thank you for looking out for us," Marienny said to Vicks. 

The Vuvalini nodded easily and rose to her feet.

"Are you coming to the mess with us?"

Vicks glanced around her and seemed to give the boys a nod, but fell in at Marienny’s side.

As they walked along slowly behind the group of women, Vicks smiled. 

"Treb said you might do one of these in some place where he could join?"

“What, stealing our songs?”

Vicks shook her head, “Mentioned accompaniment, actually. Helping out the beat. Like they used to do for Doof.” 

“Changing it up any?”

“Seemed to find it all plenty ‘shine’ on it’s own, be surprised if he’d thought of it.” The Vuvalini shrugged.

Marienny thought back to the way he'd been listening, his whole body straining into the rhythm. Thought about how, despite some worries, the war boy apparently did just sit on his hands, Vicks looking easy about the shoulders and maybe even the slightest bit bored. Thought about how everyone looked so curious and receptive. 

Nobody had ever wanted anything from the breeders but breedin', before. If people wanted to join in this,  _ their  _ music,  _ their  _ dancing and rituals, thought it was worth listening to even if they had to sit outside, maybe sharing it with more people would be nice. The more people know of a thing, the less chance it might be lost, and that is as true of song and dance as it was of stories. 

Marienny glanced at the others and maybe some would need some convincing but...

"Yes, I think we will.”

Ahead of them, two of the Soundless-apprenticed girls chatted excitedly about the celebration. Marienny thought that maybe especially for them, brought up so sheltered and wary, it wouldn't be a bad thing to have music where others could join. They all had to move forward, as uneasy as it might feel. 

* * *

"Furiosa, I need your help," Janey said firmly, stopping the other woman from leaving after council. She'd maybe sounded a little more serious than intended, because Furiosa straightened and went into something Janey thought looked very much like battle readiness. 

“Where—”

"No, it's nothing serious—” Janey waved her down, “at least I hope not. Will you come to my quarters?"

Furiosa followed her without a word, the chains on her sigil belt chiming softly. Janey and her sisters shared a good sized room that had been picked for its strategic defensive position. Originally the girls, now Tribunes, bunked in with them. But once they had come into their own, the younger women had chosen separate rooms, further along the hall. Now it was mostly just a comfort to have a space with each other, to be able to guard each other's backs. They'd each found ways to create a little private space in their own corner, privacy still an unsought-for luxury after so many years of sharing the smallest bit of shelter. 

Janey led Furiosa to her corner and ducked through the ragged, patched curtain. She indicated the pile of items next to her bed. It was… well, she wasn't sure, really. Odds and ends? belts mainly, and some cans of chrome and a blackened scarf. There was a tin of black grease, and a small tin of some kind of fine silvery dust. 

"It started during the scouting tour. I thought it was salvage at first."

"They're giving you this stuff?"

Janey bent down to pick up most of the pile and dump it on her bed. 

"I thought it'd pass when we got back, but I can't walk around the Citadel without one of them hovering nearby, 'just in case I need something'. "

Furiosa found the belt with the bits of chain and cloth hanging from it, held it up, and laughed softly. 

"Well, they're obviously hoping you'll be Imperator."

"Why? Why would they care about me getting a title?"

"It's probably less about you and more about their own status. An Imperator's crew gets chrome jobs—" she paused a moment as if realising her own choice or words, then shrugged and continued, "there's status connected to it, extra rations before and after missions. They want to be useful, to have a purpose, and there is a kind of security in being a crew, not having to wait around hoping to be given a task. A lot of your guys have never been in the position to be on a crew before, and they really want to be."

Janey nodded. "I got that impression. But they can't make me an Imperator, that's not up to them."

"But they can try to make you at least  _ look  _ right," Furiosa grinned. "So that the other Warboys understand how things are now, even if it isn't official."

Janey held the ornamented belt and sighed. 

"We could make it official easily enough," Furiosa said. 

"If I wanted to follow Joe's toxic system."

They were both quiet for a moment, and Janey realised Furiosa might take it as something said about her. "I mean... I know you and Ace aren't… I just wish Warboys could feel secure in their place in the Citadel without having to prop me up?"

“What place do you imagine them to have?” Furiosa asked.

“Well this place certainly needs guarding and scouting.”

“And you would be willing to lead them.” 

“Of course but—” Janey caught her Look, “That doesn’t make me—”

"Do you plan to just pick new guys every time you need a crew?"

"That's what I'm used to, you know. With the Vuvalini, back when we had more than six, we'd take the people most suited to the task who were willing and able at the time. It was almost never the same group."

“I remember a little, but wasn’t sure,” Furiosa said quietly. She cleared her throat and continued, "Would you do that here?"

"Well, I do know some of them quite well now, and not so much the rest. So I guess I'd probably use mostly the same. Excepting the guys that were picked for your new crew.” She sighed, looking at the belt. “I guess it’s something familiar to them and it doesn’t hurt anyone.”

“Does it really bother you though?”

Janey thought for a moment. “Might we switch out some smaller units sometimes, between crews? Would promote unity, discourage cliques.”

“Some groups just don’t work well together,” Furiosa pointed out.

“They should all still be willing to work together, learn each other’s quirks,” Janey’s mouth twisted, “And would be harder also for dissenters to work up a good plan if crew gets shuffled around.”

“Always have a gun ready?” Furiosa asked, but already half nodding. 

“Had one ready even as they’d lifted us up.” Janey laughed and nudged Furiosa, “Don’t tell me you don’t squirrel guns or shanks around you wherever you are. I’ve seen them.”

“You might have,” Furiosa allowed, smile sneaking around her mouth. “I’ll talk to Ace and the Tribunes, see what they think as well, but I think we can switch them out.”

“Keep them from being bored doing either patrol or sentry. Fresh eyes.”

"Right. Do you need me to have Kompass or Austeyr talk to the guys that fancy themselves your crew? Tell them off?"

Janey hesitated. 

"If it's really bothering you we can try to redirect them," Furiosa offered. 

"Let me think about… about the Imperator thing."

* * *

Max was trying to remember why he'd thought that coming to Furiosa's quarters would be restful. He'd assumed only Ace would be around in the daytime, only four days since his surgery, and maybe Max'd slept so poorly the night before that a couple of hours in the quiet presence of the other man sounded like something that might work better. Not to mention that the mattress was comfortable, and there was plenty of space on the far side from Ace. 

Except the others were around too, for some reason.

The small sounds jolted him awake and Max found himself glad for it, blinking up at the ceiling, head tilted back, trying to slow his heart. Images from the dream faded quick, ungraspable, but leaving him with a sick feeling in his stomach, sour fear and twitchy fingers and a desperate need to  _ run _ . 

Max swallowed the urge down.

"Don't you guys have work to do?" Max asked, pretending a yawn as if they'd disturbed his rest instead of released him from his dream. 

"What, you want us to  _ go  _ or something?" Austeyr asked wide-eyed. He came to sit next to Max as if to show that that probably wasn't happening. 

Max huffed. 

"The man is trying to sleep," Ace said from his place on the other side of the mattress, not looking up from where he was fiddling with one of Furiosa's new arms. Max wondered what he'd noticed of his dreaming. "Sometimes he gets dayfevers."

“Eh?” Kompass asked, sliding his eyes over to Ace. 

They exchanged a look, and Ace said, “Like some get with nightfevers, but not.”

“Rough,” Kompass grimaced and went over to Max, plopping down across from him.

Max gave the Imperator a look of mock betrayal. It wasn't like he'd expected Ace  _ not  _ to speak of what they'd discussed in the infirmary though. It just squirmed his stomach to hear it, somewhat.

"Are they bad?" Austeyr asked with interest. "Do you need us to wake you?"

Max was still trying to decide how to answer that when Austeyr began patting his face. “This is how we wake crew when they're dreaming, you know, works right well, except, hmm, maybe we shouldn't do this with feral crew?"

Max grumbled, trying to turn away, but in truth not minding all that much. 

“You gonna bite off my finger?” Austeyr asked dramatically, "Is this getting you angry? Would I like you when you’re angry?”

There was a small and squeaky sound that Max tracked over to… Kompass, apparently trying to stifle a laugh. It was so absurd a noise that it was easy to fall into Austeyr’s joking around.

“ Is your crazy feral rage increasing? Are you mad yet?” The pats to his face increased, “Do you wanna kill me now? How about  _ now _ ?”

And Max was almost snickering with it but then suddenly the hand went over his face differently and Max flashed to a memory of being suffocated under hands, grabbing at his face and covering his nose, his mouth, and he  _ jolted _ , badly, backwards in Ace's direction.

Austeyr stared, slowly lowering his hand. 

Max stared back, and breathed, and tried to remember where he was. Awake, for one. And safe. 

Ace hummed a question at him.

_ Safe _ , Max thought.

“What.” Austeyr swallowed, darted his eyes over at Kompass, and then looked at Max again, “What do you want me to do?”

He shrugged. 

They kept staring at him in question.

“ ‘S nothing,” Max muttered towards the side.

“That didn’t look like nothing,” Austeyr shoved at his shoulder again playfully, with his own. "Can I try again, see if it'll be easier? Figure out if it’s a specific thing or like something we need to just avoid?"

“We’ve had crew’ve been weird about this or that,” Kompass shrugged. “Happens.”

Max looked back, confused.

“Okay....” Austeyr dragged the word out, “I’mma have to guess. Is it? Stop me, then, if—” And Austeyr scooted forward again, until he was sitting next to Max, and bumped their shoulders together. “It’s the face then? Don’t cover your face?”

Max grunted at him and rolled his eyes.

Which only prompted the war boy to start palming his face again, in earnest, ridiculous holds like he was feeling for head lumps or lice or something.

“Is it this?” Austeyr asked, keeping up a stream of babble, “Or this? How about—”

And then his palm was cupping Max’s face, partially covering his eye and jaw, and he flinched a little. Tried to keep himself steady because this shouldn’t matter. It  _ shouldn’t _ .

“Hey,” Kompass protested, and reached forward as if to grab Austeyr’s wrist away from him. "Okay?"

Max waved him off, breathing deep, trying to still himself. 

Kompass draped his hand over Max’s head like a hat instead, and that did it. _It was too ridiculous._ And too different from anything like his dreams. Max snorted, tension breaking, so thoroughly that he’d didn’t even react when Rachet plopped on his other side with some refilled canteens he’d brought back from the Imperators’ pipes. 

“Is this a thing now?” Rachet asked, and planted a hand across Max’s opposite cheek. Looked at them all curiously. “Why are we doing this?”

“Ferals like things on their faces?” Kompass shrugged, not moving his hand. 

Max snorted at him only that ended up with a finger up his nose, and then he tried shaking them off like water but they kept coming back. And he was carefully wrestling bodies away from him, trying to avoid jostling Ace, only to get dogpiled to within an inch of his life, and somewhere in all that he realized that he was having  _ fun— _

They all looked up when the door opened.

Furiosa was looking down at them.

Blinked slowly.

"...why are you sitting on Max?"

"He's comfy," Rachet declared sincerely. 

Max snorted laughter and shoved him off, or tried to. Rachet laughed and clung on.

"Comfortable, is he?" Furiosa grinned, and sat down to lean against Max's side. He didn’t exactly freeze but became more  _ aware _ . Self-conscious. Worried about moving wrong, even though a moment ago he'd wrestled Austeyr away with care for his still-healing side. 

Everyone sensed it, looking at each other, looking at Max. 

(he looked at her, torn, wanting to invite her but not knowing how. Not knowing how to get past his—

not knowing how to get  _ past _ . He knew that everything he said would come out wrong. He knew that she should have better. Deserved better. He knew that this was important and that he ruined things and that he needed to say something but with every moment the words that he needed to say failed to arrive

and then the moment passed, and became awkward)

Furiosa’s grin slowly slid away.

The room was subdued for the rest of the night.


	44. Woodie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Woodie: A home made climbing wall._
> 
> The ledge was empty. 
> 
> Why was she surprised? 
> 
> She blew out a frustrated breath and stared at the ceiling.

Furiosa blinked awake and, half-asleep, did a headcount that had become automatic. Ace safely near the wall, three around her, and—

The ledge was empty. 

Why was she surprised? 

She blew out a frustrated breath and stared at the ceiling.

Furiosa didn't know why Max wouldn't get involved. Didn't know why he kept leaving, at night. He'd hesitate, look thoughtful, but he still left. Max stayed the night of Ace’s surgery, and she’d thought that might’ve broken through, that he would stay from then onwards and she'd felt so hopeful that next evening after Ace's surgery, when he'd come to her quarters to sleep during the day. When she'd found him wrestling with the crew, seeming relaxed, laughing even. 

Then she'd tried to join in and everything had gone… well. 

Furiosa had told herself that at least he was staying in the room, that it was progress. She might have thought he wasn't interested in being with her and the crew if sometimes, over the time he'd been here with them, he hadn't stayed and watched, watched,  _ watched _ . He’d stay when they started sexing, but snuck only glances, never looking when her eyes sought his. More boldly recently, his cheeks a little red, but intently, as if witnessing was somehow important. She'd even thought she'd seen his blanket move rhythmically, the last time, but it had been dark and she'd been thoroughly distracted. 

It was a relief to see that apparently it wasn't, or wasn't any longer, the warboys that kept him from being there. She'd worried about that, worried that he'd never join her unless she sent the crew from her bed, which she wasn't willing to do. From the way he was interacting with them now, they weren't the problem. The downside to that was that apparently it was  _ her _ . 

Except he still _ watched. _

That third day after Ace's surgery, he’d watched. She'd wrestled with Kompass on the mattress, encouraged by the cheers and laughter of the others. Just a relaxed, enjoyable rolling, the kind of thing she'd thought might happen when Max was in the middle there. She'd gotten riled up and impulsively pinned Kompass on his back, sitting on his chest with her knees on his arms, and made him watch as she rubbed her clit. The memory of his frustrated little sounds, and the way his hips had twitched up into empty air, still made her feel warm. It had taken little more than a gently trailed nail up his shaft to finish him, after. 

Max had touched himself too, furtively, under a blanket.

Why would he not come over and join them? If only to sleep? He seemed fine the next evening again roughhousing with the crew just before she entered the room, but once again retreating to the ledge once she arrived.

And disappearing before the morning.

She knew it _wasn't_ because he didn't trust her, didn't like her, probably not even because he didn't desire her, but it hurt. 

No matter how much she wanted Max, she wasn't willing to banish the crew from her bed for him if the issue was that he needed to be alone with her, or to separate just the two of them into a solitary corner.  She'd managed to draw him in for sexing that once before Ace’s surgery, but he hadn't really gotten involved, just held her, stroked her face and her head with infinite gentleness while Ace did all the things she liked.

What she liked wasn't always gentle. Now her wounds were healed, the boys were slowly getting less insistent on treating her like she was made of glass. 

She supposed they might have finally figured that out the night she’d sat on Kompass' chest. When she'd had them all watching with twitchy fingers, hands moving on their gearsticks in the same rhythm she used on herself. When she'd heard Max groan softly, and thought she'd seen him touch himself too. And— 

Furiosa had glanced up, right then, snagged a little bit of Max’s gaze and it’d seemed to shock him into coming too. She’d felt it a victory right up until everyone else dozed off and he’d slipped from the room. Again.

_ Oh _ . Hm. Why had the thought not occurred to her sooner? She'd been pinning Kompass in an echo of how she'd pinned Max, in that first desperate fight. 

Maybe that fight was still on his mind?

Was he worried she would set him off in some way, or worried that  _ he  _ would set  _ her  _ off? Maybe both?

She wondered how he'd respond if she did the same thing with him. Judging by how he'd responded just watching it, not entirely negative. Probably shouldn't risk it.

Or maybe... Maybe she was tired of trying to tiptoe around the issue. 

Furiosa gave herself a good long stretch and got up from the bed. It was decided. She had a feral to hunt down.

* * *

"We should spar."

Max startled a little, glancing aside at her as they walked through the Citadel hallways. It'd been five days since Ace's surgery, three since she had stopped looking like a particularly worried shadow of herself. 

Max had given a lot of blood - he was still not sure what had prompted him to offer his arm to Gale, and his thoughts skitter away when he tried to think on it - but they'd fed him extra, after. He was feeling all right; he was more surprised that she felt up to sparring.

Then again last couple nights she was plenty ‘active’. His sight unfocused despite himself, remembering it, the sight of her pinning Kompass down making him remember how powerful Furiosa was at her strongest and thinking that Ace was right, maybe, that he was overdwelling on it. That between the crew making sure he didn't step wrong and how assertive Furiosa herself was, maybe he wouldn't…

(there was a vague lurking sense of doom, of cars and guns just around the next bend, just another ambush, waiting, waiting

they're waiting for him to look away, or to love too much, or to want to keep something he has no business keeping

_ it's coming, _ the back of his neck told him;  _ it's coming, _ whispered the wind; he’s not sure what it is except it’s making him want to handcuff things to explosions and walk away knowing it’ll  _ burn _ )

…the thing is, Max knew that he was quite mad. But he couldn’t stop thinking the things he was thinking, seeing and hearing the things he did. He'd just been considering if these people could… could deal if he was not… well, if they could handle his type of madness. If they could turn the wheel fast enough through his twists and turns.

If he could tame it enough for them. Or maybe they could beat it down enough for them all.

Max thought about Furiosa’s request for a spar and remembered those three days of endless running and fighting with War music chasing them. Remembered how brilliantly ruthless she could be, even when impaired by injury or lack of weapons or arm.

So maybe this could, could be:

"Okay," he said. He knew the rest of the warboys went to the Pits to spar or fight, but Imperators didn't; too dangerous. Furiosa only sparred with Ace or Kompass, as far as he knew. He'd watched in admiration as the bigger man seamlessly dialled down the intensity until it was challenging for Furiosa without being too much for her still-recovering body. Max wasn't sure he'd be able to do that; he couldn't remember the last time he'd been in any sort of sparring or friendly training situation. 

"Not sure how I'll, mm," he gestured vaguely, trying to summon the words. "How I'll be."

She just nodded, and led the way to a room with mats. He was relieved to see where was no audience. 

"Boots off," she told him, kicking off her own, then unstrapping her arm and laying it aside. Then she kneeled on the mat and waited until he did the same. He watched her warily, uncertain what she needed from him and if he'd be able to provide it. 

"First one to have bare feet loses," she said, flashing him a grin, nodding at the socks he'd been given a few days ago. "Go."

He was still frowning about this strange instruction when she ducked in and yanked him off balance, and he yelped and pulled his feet out of her reach, scrambling to catch up.

He'd been worried he would get too serious, wouldn't be able to keep in mind she wasn't trying to kill him. Maybe she'd realised that, because this strange exercise changed the focus so much that he found himself laughing a few times, trying to defend his feet while simultaneously trying to get to hers. 

She was obviously more experienced in this game than he was, and after a few minutes she crowed triumphantly, rolling away from him, and Max looked mournfully at his bare feet.

"She gives, she takes away," he sighed. Furiosa chuckled and tossed them at him. 

"We play this with the pups. You okay?"

"Mm. Yeah, it's… it's good. Helps."

She nodded, and he knew that this was her way of trying to fix the fight that was still between them, the memories of the desperation, of trying to kill each other.

"Again?"

He put his socks back on and pointedly looked at hers. Nodded. 

This time he got one of her socks, but she got both of his again. She was breathing hard by that time, and flopped down on the mat on her back, grinning up at him. He smiled down at her, his body humming pleasantly with the exercise. She was already recovering, though she was still a little flushed, and the memory of how she'd been in his arms while Ace licked her out suddenly presented itself. 

He looked away, feeling his face grow warm.

He knew she didn't think there was any reason for shame; she'd had sex in front of him without any outward sign of unease, and made it clear he was welcome in the tangled pile of warm, surging bodies if he wanted.

He  _ wanted _ . He just…

She tossed his socks to the side of the mat where his boots were, took off her remaining sock. Kneeled on the mat again. He slowly mirrored her. 

"Let's try it slow, okay?"

"Mm, right," he nodded.

He wasn't entirely surprised when she managed to pin him; he was distracted by the incongruous sight of her bare feet, and suddenly she was sitting on his chest. He froze, and she relaxed, not trying particularly hard to keep him there. 

"This, huh? Max?"

He blinked up at her, his head full of noise, the memory of that fight crashing up against the  _ feeling  _ of her, warm and alive and powerful on top of him. She didn't even have his arms pinned. 

She slowly leaned forward, face close to his. "Max… Max? You with me?"

As if in a dream he saw himself lift his hand to lightly trace it over her throat, no pressure at all. Her eyes drifted shut and she sighed.

"This is okay?" he asked in wonder. 

"Mm."

She leaned into his touch a little, making more contact, though there was still no pressure. "Intent," she murmured. "Changes everything."

"Hmm." He supposed she'd probably spent a lot of time sparring with her crew, over the years. Maybe enough to shed most of her panic reflexes. 

Her face was close above his, and he was overwhelmed with the feeling of her, the trust she apparently had in him, to let him touch her like this.

Max watched as his hand slid up along her jaw, cupped her cheek, and her lips curved up a little, her head tilting into his touch without thought.

"Been…" he hesitated, long enough for her to make a questioning little noise. "Been wanting to, um, touch you."

"Been hoping you would," she whispered. "Is it the warboys?"

"Mm..." Max hummed cautiously because they mattered, but probably not the way that Furiosa was worried about. And not in a way he knew quite how to request. 

"We can tell them to back off, you know. You don't have to, with them." She considered it a moment and said carefully, "Though being in the room still... they'll probably have… helpful advice."

Max huffed a laugh, because he could just imagine being between Furiosa's legs with Austeyr heckling. He wasn't sure what to do with finding the thought more amusing than horrifying. 

She seemed to catch his amusement and looked relieved at it.

"Mm, it’s more been worried about…" he telegraphed the roll, making it slow and obvious what he was doing. Moved them until he was over her, keeping his weight mostly on his knees so she couldn't feel just how hard this was making him. He stayed poised to move off of her the moment she seemed uneasy.

"I think there was a water hose at this point," she mused, not tensing up at the way he was over her. After a long moment, she hooked her leg around the back of his thighs and rolled them again, unbalancing him easily from how he'd been keeping his weight off of her. 

He grunted when she ended up sitting on his hips, knowing his body was responding, knowing she could feel it. 

_ 'Been hoping that you would, _ ' he reminded himself of her words. He had not come upon her in the wastes this time to force her into that moment, pinned. 

He reached up and cupped the back of her head, gently drawing her down toward him. Her eyes went wide, and he suddenly realised that for all the things he'd seen her do with the warboys, he'd never seen her kiss. Maybe that was not a thing? He lifted his head a little and rubbed his cheek against hers, like some half remembered animal, and heard her soft chuckle as she returned the gesture, after a small pause. 

His right hand trailed along her back, gentle at first, then a little firmer, and she made an approving hum. A shiver ran down her spine when he lightly trailed down his nails, and her hips rocked a little against his. 

She gave an interested hum and did it again, more deliberate now, and he made a breathless sound, hips bucking up without his input. 

“Ah, sorry,” he muttered.

Max found his shoulder shoved into the ground by the nub of her left arm as she started looking actively frustrated.

“ _ Why _ ?”

“...??”

“Why are you  _ apologizing _ ?”

He stared up at her.

"I want this. You want this, right?" She rolled her hips against his again pointedly. Frowned suddenly and started moving away, “Unless I’m misreading it. Or the extent of what you want; I know some just want to watch. And that’s fi—”

His hands went to her hips, keeping her from moving off him. 

"I'm, uh, I--" he kneaded her flesh, mouth working on words that refused to form. 

“Is the asking hard?” She asked quietly.

_ Not the only thing that's hard _ , the thought flashed through his mind, and he choked a little. The pressure of her was warm and heavy on his erection, grinding it against his stomach, and he couldn't  _ think _ . 

He rolled them onto their sides, creating some space so his brain would work. 

"You'll tell me?" he managed, "If I-- if you--"

"Yes.  _ Yes. _ "

She surged up and rolled them with a deft hook of her leg, stared down at him. "I don't know where you picked up the idea I'm fragile."

He looked at her, powerful and alive as she towered over him. She was breathing easily, nothing of the terrifying death rattle he remembered. 

"I don't want-- I don't like--" he sucked in a breath, trying to scrape together words. "that I— like. This."

"This?"

"Control. ...rough." His voice dropped soft and ashamed. 

"Huh." She sat upright, looking down on him with a considering expression. He squirmed with unease and looked away, feeling guilty all over again with how exciting it had been, just minutes ago, to pin her. And how it had felt when she'd pinned him with purpose, deliberately grinding against him. 

"Are you worried about me? Or about you?" she asked finally. 

Max shrugged uneasily. "After all you-- I shouldn't want--" He looked away to the side. "Shouldn't like that."

She huffed a breath, and he risked a glance at her. 

"I like it," she shrugged. "It's exciting. Long as it's… friendly, too."

"Mm," he agreed hesitantly. He'd never even really thought of that as an option, that you could be rough and friendly at the same time, until she'd rolled with Kompass the other day, growling and laughing. There'd been such fondness in their faces, even when Kompass had bucked and hissed because she wasn't allowing him to touch her. Max couldn't remember having been as hard as he had been then. 

(except maybe now)

They stared at each other a long moment, and he could feel the tension, the heat of her and the pressure against his body.

His thumb stroked small circles over the small strip of bared skin above the waistband of her trousers, and she made a pleased little hum, her hips rocking slightly. His cock pulsed, and he couldn't help but gasp. 

"I want this," she said, her eyes fixed on his. "I want this with you." 

"Not… not here," he managed finally, hands idly kneading at her hips. "Your quarters?"

"The boys will be there," she mused. 

He nodded. That was good. He wanted them there. It felt safer. 

"Tonight?"  she sounded a little hopeful, and there was a sensation in his chest he didn't know how to handle. 

"Y-yeah."

* * *

Max didn't know what to do with himself, with the buzz under his skin from touching Furiosa, from knowing he could go to her quarters that night and touch more. Knowing she was counting on it. He  _ wanted _ , nearly ached with wanting it, couldn't stop thinking about how she'd looked directly at him and told him she wanted him. He had no idea how to spend his time until the evening, so he drifted through the Citadel for a while. Wasn't even sure where he was when he overheard a couple of Warboys he recognised from the canyon - the Doof drummers. They had decorated themselves with music symbols. 

“Okay guys, so sometime in the next couple days the women are coming down to drum and sing.”

“What, they can drum?” “Breeders can  _ drum _ ?”

“Yes they  _ can _ , don’t make that face, and the Soundless girls too—”

“In’t Soundless drumming a contradiction?”

“Stop interrupting!” The war boy shouted, “look, they’re not sure at all about coming out to drum. I asked them to."

"Why'd you do that?"

" 'cause they sounded shine, and I wanted to join in."

"You want to make music with the breeders?"

"Yes!” 

“ _ Sweet _ music?” they teased. "You tryin' to get in with them, get to do some breedin'?"

“What? No! I want to make music, yeah. What of it? None of anyone here seemed up to music what with Doof riding off to Valhalla. I just need you guys to behave… right, like.”

“Don’t mess this up for ya, that’s what you’re saying, we get it, we get it.” The Doof Wagon’s crew laughed and jostled his shoulder, “Never seen you this riled up.”

“You haven’t heard them play though!”

And then the teasing went off again, another round of it until the man’s face was so flushed that Max could tell even from under his paint.

A yellow and grey hand printed war boy from the Bullet Farm shook his head as Max passed by him, continuing down the hall...

“Tch, we never had this much drama over at the Farms.”

“Oh?” Kaybar, Max thought that was his name, asked. The war boy was hardly recognizable now, all swirled up and handprinted with different colors of clay.

“Offer up a belt of bullets, maybe a cartridge. If it’s accepted then the bunk’s shared for the night, nothing with all this fuss.”

“You don’t know if it  _ is _ the music or isn’t,” Kaybar protested, “What if Treb’s actually about the music though, what then?”

“What, like it’s your art?” the other war boy asked doubtfully, “it’s just sounds though, nothing physical, that can’t count right?”

“But it’s still  _ art _ .” Kaybar protested.

“Music isn’t even a thing tho, you can’t touch it!”

“If I pull you by the belt you’re still moving right? Even though I’m not touching you direct-like.”

“I’ll move  _ you _ .”

“If that was a comeback it’s pretty rust.”

“That was a come  _ on _ you boofhead--”

The argument degenerated as Max wandered further on, fading into echoes and strangeness that Max didn’t bother examining too closely. Sometimes he still startled, thinking they were imagined voices, but he was getting used to how the Citadel's hallways and air channels warped and made ghostly the sounds of voices, carrying them far past their origins. 

"Kompass says ya gotta keep track of each other, when you're a crew. Try to make each other better."

"Well, we do that, right? I taught ya'll better lancing. We're practicing more at three-bells."

"Yeah. He also says 'Don't be like that one asshole that kept trying to shove crew outta the way to make himself look good'."

"Hah! Whatshisface. With the things. I remember him." 

“We're already a crew, we just need to know how to make the Imperator understand she's our Imperator."

"I think Kompass and Oti both said that they always know where their Imperator is and we should too.”

“Yeah, somebody's always nearby in case she needs somebody."

"Well, if she has a job needs doin' it'd be shameful if she had ta ask. Especially if she had ta ask anybody but us."

A wave of disgruntled-sounding agreement arose.

"Agreed. So we need to make sure somebody's always nearby, so he can call us if we're needed, but not so nearby that she gets annoyed and send us away like she's been doing.." 

"This would be so much easier if she understood she's our Imperator."

“Do you think she doesn’t… actually want crew?”

“Who wouldn’t want crew though?”

Max cringed away a little at the roar of agreement that rose up in response, rushing away from the words until he broke through the last door to breathe, deep, long, and stunned; up in the open air of one of the lower terraces.

The  _ shh... shhh o _ f green things shouldering against each other quieted his thoughts.

Max hauled air into his lungs and the finally open space above his head and took in the views of the horizon and the plains around the Citadel.

“You’d think,” Dag said calmly behind him, “they’d be less noisy.”

Max whirled around, then looked up. One level above them, Tribune Dag was sitting in a half-circle with what appeared to be green thumbs and distro workers, sorting and cleaning veg for the next meal.

“Hunh?”

She gestured below her, at the door. “With all those tunnels freed of all those war boys from this or that over these past thirty days, that they’d be less noisy.”

“Those things always manage to full up on echoes and rumors,” a woman next to her tsked, handing off what looked like scrubbed clean carrots to the boy sitting next to her for the tops to be twisted off. “Don’t matter how many or few there is.”

“People? Or only War boys?” a greenthumb asked as he dropped off a basket and plopped down.

“Both. Either. It’s like thoughts in a head, don’t matter how many, or how good, or how useful they are, they bounce around until the head’s full.”

“Any,” Max cleared his throat and looked away, “Any way you know of quieting it?”

“Why’d you think we’re all up here?” Dag shot back and dangled one of the carrots in his direction. “You too dirty to get your hands dirty?”

"Look at this beaut. You ever seen this colour? This size?" Gilly leaned out from where she’d been hidden behind the tall blond, holding up a carrot of her own for him to see. It looked like an heirloom breed. “We should get Keeper’s seeds in the ground, then see about maybe crossbreeding what works best in this dirt.”

“Well are you joining us then?”

Max had… well there’d been vague thoughts of finding an empty room or hallway to process, to maybe try to contain himself more, guard himself better.

But maybe he would just keep hearing his own echoes if he did that.

The Dag was bouncing  _ two _ carrots now in front of him, impatiently. “Well? They aren’t gonna rub themselves.”

Max made a face at her.  _ Really now? You too? _

She gave him a Look and he stared back flatly.

“Hmm. Got a brush?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YEAH THAT'S RIGHT, WE NAMED THIS PART WOODIE, WHAT OF IT.


	45. Weighting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weighting: As in, "weighting the rope." Any time the rope takes the weight of the climber.
> 
> _These hadn’t been the calm, confident Warboys Toast had gotten to know in Council and around Furiosa, boys who were keen to make good impressions and had some idea on how to go about it, in this new Citadel. As she came up the steps and caught sight of them this morning she trailed to a halt._

Toast took a deep breath and climbed the last set of steps to the terrace.

She'd joined most of Janey's lessons, enjoyed learning how to fight. It was just little bits of actual technique so far; her body needed conditioning, her mind training to think more calmly when violence was happening. But it had felt good to do something, to know she would have more options next time somebody grabbed her and wouldn't let go.

She heard the boisterous voices of warboys and tried to remember why on earth she'd decided she wanted to be in this lesson. Some of the warboys had asked to be taught too and, unwilling to deny a request for knowledge, the Vuvalini had agreed after some disagreements from others, the result being that Gilly had started to teach a bunch of warboys separately. It had made a lot of sense at the time, and not so much afterward, when Toast had said she'd be joining them. Maybe because she wanted to make sure that whatever knowledge they had, she had it too. Maybe she just wanted to be sure what she was learning could match up to them.

Something like that. Even if it meant she might have to practice _with_ Warboys, which had only sunk in later.

And these hadn’t been the calm, confident Warboys Toast had gotten to know in Council and around Furiosa, boys who were keen to make good impressions and had some idea on how to go about it, in this new Citadel.As she came up the steps and caught sight of them this morning she trailed to a halt.

There had been four of them for the first lesson. Slighter and sometimes shorter than what she'd gotten used to expecting, two of them even barely taller than she was. The youngest had only chest scars, but the other three were heavily scarred up, both decorative and injuries, more than other warboys around their age. She wondered if they'd caught the brunt of violence for being not as strong as the others.

She had quickly discovered that they might be the weakest of the Warboys, they were still conditioned in a way she never had been. Could keep going a lot longer without getting tired. Apparently it started as pups, groups of them running around the lower levels.

"Get em tired enough to sleep easy," Rett had laughed as he told her about it. She wondered if it still happened, and how she hadn't ever seen it.

“We try to keep them out of the way, Imperators tend to get tetchy when bumped into and,” the war boy grimaced, “you tend to not want to get their attention less you’re strong ‘nough.”

Toast wondered at how the war boy culture was so based on status and strength that the younger and the weaker had to be hidden. How that action was simultaneously degrading and yet meant as protection, and yet even those ‘protected’ jostled amongst each other for status and the right to be ‘better protected’.

Even as she watched this morning, one shoved the other hard enough for him to lose his balance. He windmilled back and landed hard on the packed ground, and Toast winced.

This would be lesson five, and there were more warboys now, seven of them. It was a mixed group. A few like Rett and Razor, to whom the Vuvalini might refer to as daughtersons, but Toast had learned to call absolutely nothing but warboys. A few like Kukri who had naturally short or slight builds, lacking the reach or the muscle strength of the bigger warboys. And a few who had been marked by birth or by the Wasteland, had twisted spines or one leg much shorter than the other. They'd been relegated to dunny bucket runners or other support work, but now, with fewer warboys, expected to fight if the Citadel was attacked.

She wondered if they'd never been taught fighting before, or at least not taught in a way they learned anything but being smashed into the dust by bigger, stronger warboys.

This morning they greeted her like always with wary looks, like they still didn't know exactly what to do with her. Called out in greeting, “Tribune Toast.”

After the first lesson, Toast had felt both wary and disconnected from it all. She’d mentioned them shoving and prodding at one another at one point to Kompass after a council meeting and, after he’d checked to see that they weren’t shoving at _her_ , seemed to brush it off.

“But _why_?” She demanded.

“If they were doing that to you, then they don’t respect you,” Kompass replied, “They would be testing you, trying to get on top of you—”

Toast shot him a Look, and Kompass coughed.

“...not like that. Like, getting status on you.”

“So it’s a good thing.” She said flatly.

Kompass shrugged.

“Except they don’t even _try_ when we’re partnered up. I don’t feel like I’m learning.” Toast grumbled, “and it’s like pulling teeth to get them to talk. Unless they’re bragging.”

"From what I hear of your group from Gilly,” Kompass coughed, “They... have to work hard. To be— like everybody else." He scratched at his nose, looked thoughtful. “Except, well, is there still an 'everybody else'? We've got all sorts of people now."

He gestured at the council members chatting with each other as they left the room and Toast had to disagree.

“We’ve _always_ had all sorts.” She scoffed, “They were all just ‘hidden’ away or unacknowledged or not given a choice or any part in the decision making.”

“Mm,” Kompass nodded easily enough, “Listen though, if they give you a hard time come to me and I'll go shake them up.”

And Toast had thought to herself that that was completely not what she wanted or sought. She… She didn't know what she wanted out of the situation, come to think of it. She'd thought to come to this class to make sure the Warboys didn't learn things she didn't, but she hadn't counted on the people she'd see here, the small, the weak, the disabled. They weren't a threat, more self defense knowledge or not. They were vulnerable themselves, seeking a way to shore up their own safety.

They were as much a part of the Citadel as anyone else, and if Toast and her sisters were to be Tribunes of this place then… Then Toast had to find a way to work with them, help them feel as invested in the Citadel as they were to the concept of team and crew.

“Good morning,” she greeted them, and then called them by name. She started warming up by herself and found a couple of the others falling in with her, as they waited together for Gilly.

Maybe it might take awhile for them to warm up to her, maybe even longer for than for her to get her strength and stamina up, but Toast has no way of Knowing, beforehand. She can only _try_ , she can only stand her ground and keep coming to the lessons and maybe eventually it’ll be enough if she stays.

“You know,” Rett mentioned to her casually as they waited, “There’s a running bet that you’re gonna hurl at one point from the work.”

 _They’re… not wrong,_ Toast grimaced, frowning into the middle distance. There had been several close calls during the first few practices, and it still cropped up every so often even though it’d been a couple tendays since they’ve started. But she was damned it she was going to let it stop her.

“Betting rations?” She asked.

“What of it.” Rett replied carefully.

Toast turned to look at him, “Put three rations on ‘Never’.”

Rett crowed in laughter and Kukri and Razor joined him.

“How’re you gonna collect on ‘Never’, lemme ask you!” Razor tossed back.

“Well at some point I’m gonna pass the highest count right?” Toast demanded, “And what’s the pot at this point?”

“Doesn’t matter if you’d never see it, right?”

It’d devolved into further heckling and Toast would be more upset at it if she hadn’t realized that this was maybe the first full conversation she’d had with the war boys in the class.

And that morning Rett actually _worked_ with her on her skills instead of folding before she could tell if she’d gotten the technique right.

“Good job,” Gilly praised them.

* * *

“Rachet, hey, what’s all this?” Austeyr grumbled a little as Rachet led him down some corridors, “I thought you said we had an important meeting.”

“Yeah,” he tossed over his shoulder.

“The Council room is higher up.”

“Didn’t say it was happening there.” Rachet said, blinking at Austeyr, “You were the one that kept saying the most important talks happened outside of actual meetings.”

“Yeah, but,” the lancer looked shiftily about.

Rachet has no idea what to make of that, something having made Austeyr act weird ever since Ace nearly bleeding out. He thought maybe it was like Furiosa wanting them all near, or at least how that emotion looked someone else. Maybe Aus was heartsick at Ace possibly flaming out? Rachet knew it gave him awful stomach twists to think on it, and was so glad that Furiosa didn’t go back towards her heartsickness and instead turned her own attention outwards and, _fine_ , maybe he was purposefully attempting to rile her up by crawling out the window more than he would have otherwise.

It’s not like his garden couldn’t use a little extra care. He still had a plant or two that might make Ace feel better.

“Anyway, Deka hasn’t been coming up to Council, and she’s the one we need to talk to.”

Rachet could see Austeyr’s gaze turning a little confused.

“Remember? The representative from the Wretched when they were still called that.”

“I thought that woman Des represented them?”

Rachet shrugged, “Des does that now, Deka stopped for some reason, even though she probably knows them better.”

“That seems…”

“Odd, right?” He turned a confused gaze over at Austeyr, “I don’t know, we could ask her? Never thought to before.”

He saw the other war boy turn it over in his head, and that was good, Austeyr always liked puzzling people out. Rachet just tended to get lost with the contradictions and the arbitrary rules, and how things might be simpler just laid out? Like there was this thing that he had a feeling about, and he thought it’d be rude maybe to say it, or, well, Austeyr seemed always tetchy on the subject of what he did or didn’t look like. And Rachet thought, well, guessing really, that it might be interesting seeing Deka and Austeyr next to each other.

It’s a bit like how he likes putting his wrenches in a row, or having washers stacked neatly, the patterns matching up in a way that just felt nice.

Rachet took a step back and to the side, having met up with Deka a moment ago and having ignored the exchange of greetings in order to properly look at them. Both Austeyr and Deka turned enough to look at him, and then they were standing next to each other.

 _It’s nice,_ Rachet felt pleased with himself. Something about that felt right. Their faces matched, or something? Not just the colour but the.. the everything.

He realised they'd stopped talking and were giving him strange looks. _Identical_ strange looks.

"Sorry, just.. had a thought," he said, shaking his head a little. “Hey Deka, why’d you step down from Council? You just… disappeared on us.”

“This Citadel that we’re making,” Austeyr added, “We’re trying to make sure everyone’s _seen_ , Boss is pretty insistent on that and—”

“No one wants to see me, it’s not worth their time,” Deka gave a bitter laugh, “When you’re twisted by life like I have? Too old to have value here as a breeder, and not specialized or strong enough to be invited to work elsewhere?”

“But it’s not just—”

“Your Tendays are coming up, those are the stories you recognize and remember. _That_ is bravery, and I have nothing like that.”

Rachet looked to Austeyr but he just looked back at Deka in mute disbelief.

“Everyone wants to be seen though,” Austeyr insisted.

“Some people want to be left alone.” She retorted, “You talk as if bein’ recognized will do me a favor, it _won’t_. Or as if bein’ remembered will do others a favor, and it _wouldn’t._ ”

Deka seemed to have said her piece and looked at them with her jaw all hard, but body all curled up and weird.

Austeyr opened his mouth and closed it, several times.

“You know,” Rachet said into the silence, getting impatient, “The Boss keeps the belts of crew that doesn’t ever get mentioned at Tenday, ‘cause they’re crew. And Polaris, I mean, Kompass recognized her, and it’s good even if neither of them are really anything to each other.”

“But they’re blood related,” Austeyr pointed out, “that makes it different. It—”

And then the darkskinned war boy glanced at Deka and for some reason seemed to choke on his words. Austeyr startled, a full-body twitch he stifled immediately, and looked at the woman in a different way.

It caused Rachet to rethink on the words. And then blink.

‘ _Blood related’._

_Oh. That explained the faces.  
_

“Does it?” Deka asked softly, jaw stiff, watching Austeyr as he watched her, “Does it make any difference if they don't remember each other? If there's just a little boy who went away to where there would be water and food for him and doesn't remember?When they don’t have any memories built on years and shared struggle?”

“But it started somewhere,” Austeyr replied, staring at her intently now, “Isn’t that how our Tenday’s been changing? Remembering all parts of the story, from all peoples.”

“I am _Wretched,_ ” she cried, moving backwards, “I gave you up for something _better._ I have nothing—” 

“—you have _history_. And I want—” Austeyr insisted, approaching, but suddenly stopped.

She breathed out as he...

He pulled back. “I… I don’t want to pressure you. Don’t.” Austeyr looked at her, suddenly seeming small, “Don’t disappear. Not because of fear of me. I'll leave you alone if you want, could send Rachet as representative to the Council if it was me that was bothering you.”

“Don’t be stupid, it’s not all about you,” She snapped, running a slow hand down her face, “You earned a voice there, you’re fine there, and I won’t have you—”

“But if I crowded you out… made you uncomfortable, like the bloodbags—”

“I’m _tired_ _!_ ” She roared at him, and then subsided in coughs, holding her side and looking at him, frustrated. “They’re doing fine without me, I don’t need to be there.” She wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand and it came back stained.

Austeyr stared at it. “Is that why you haven’t said anything all this while, even now that you’d found me again?

She didn’t meet his eyes.

“I think any story you’d choose to share… I think it’d be worth listening to. I’d remember it, because it’d be important to me. I think any advice would be important to us all.”

“Even if I was wearing down?” She asked softly.

“I’d think that’d make it even more important, then.”

They stared at each other for a long moment.

Rachet cleared his throat loudly and pointed at the hallway, feeling awkward. “I think. Yeah, that’d be probably my cue to. I can grab some food for you? Meet back at the room in an hour? Or whenever.”

He had a feeling they needed to talk things out and Rachet’s, well, not much help with that.

 _What can I help with though? Things being too serious maybe?_ Rachet thought a bit, and then grinned, racing off. _Furiosa woke up this morning in a huff._

_This calls for lizards._

* * *

Kompass shifted his weight back onto his heels for the fourth time and stared at Polaris at the other end of the room.

He’d kept almost stepping forward and then changing his mind. He was careful not to drop his food and it was nice that was just some protein biscuits and veg, nothing that’ll get cold but. Well. The mess hall felt like an even larger room than normal and Polaris looked like she didn’t want company.

She was sitting there on her own, at a table, sipping carefully at a bowl. Grimacing a bit.

That was strange, maybe a bit alarming, and he found himself walking forward quickly. “Is the water tasting odd? Do we need to check out the pipes here too?”

Polaris looked up at him with a confused expression. “What? Pipes?”

“Your water, it,” Kompass reared back, suddenly unsure, “you made… a face?”

“Ah,” she shifted uncomfortably, “It’s bitter and spicy with herbs. Comfort drink for bloodday cramps. For when we bleed.” She stared at him challenging-like but Kompass thought that just sounded… familiar.

“Huh." He thought about that, looking at the cup. "Does it help during moondarks, or I think that’s what the Boss called them? Against the…" he patted his stomach.

“It helps some,” she stared at him, “You know about those?”

“Hard not to. Gotta know when the Boss ain't feeling so chrome, don't I?" He shrugged, “Though sometimes she just wants to hit things so you schedule in a spar.”

“Oh.” She looked at him like she wanted to ask him something but stopped midway through.

Kompass shifted the food he was holding and wondered if he should ask to sit down or if that would be too much, or if he should have sat down already, or if the whole thing was just rude and he should go because it’s not like he could schedule a spar for her.

“Could…?” he gestured at the seat across from her in what he hoped was a polite way.

"What… yes, sit.” She hunched a little, but it sorta made her shoulders look larger anyways, and Kompass knew what it felt like to have your shoulders do that: he’d always felt defensive.

 _Um_.

"I don't— if you just—" Kompass didn't sit down, not convinced that she wanted him to. He wanted to talk more with her, and looked around the large room seeking inspiration, “I’d hoped we could maybe, I mean you’re the only other person with memories of...”

He stuttered as his breath caught.

Polaris looked up.

“Of…”

She looked at him and he watched as she nodded and mouthed the words he wasn’t quite sure how to say.

_Our Mother._

“I remember this song,” he said, “not all of it, but the shape. Some of the words.”

“We,” his sister looked lost in thought, “we do enjoy songs. Maybe be nice, even, to have more who’d remember how to sing them.”

“Yeah?” A small trickle of hope was sliding down his spine.

“There might be… We’re thinking of hosting some drumming, some song, in a few days.”

"That sounds nice."

“Does it? You would hear music made by us breeders?” She challenged.

“If I was invited, I would go?” Kompass offered carefully, trying not to impose.

She measured him for a long awkward moment. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, maybe he should just—

“I invite you then.” Her shoulders eased, “both then and now,” she waved in front of her.

And he finally breathed out and sat down opposite her.

“Thank you.” He said genuinely, and then stuffed food into his face because his mouth was doing a thing and he wasn’t sure what.

"Hey Kompass! I need a lizard!"

They both whipped their heads towards the shout. Rachet was making his way to their table, waving his good arm over his head as if to make sure they saw him.

“Come on! Austeyr is somewhere else!” He skidded to a stop in front of their table and leaned over panting.

“Does Furiosa know you’re here?” Kompass asked, hoping the other man didn’t pull something.

"She invited Max for a spar and she thinks he might come to quarters tonight but that’s not the point, _this is our chance!_ We gotta get a lizard and—”

Rachet blinked.

Polaris blinked back.

“Oh, hi person-Kompass-is-sitting-with,” Rachet chirruped, with a screwed up twist on his face. It was that look that said Rachet knew he _should_ recognise her, but didn't and felt frustrated about it. Kompass was about to remind him when Rachet continued, “...would you know if they have uncooked lizards today?”

Polaris just raised her eyebrow at Kompass.

He looked at Rachet, who’d seen one of the distro boys enter the mess and darted off towards him, and then Kompass looked back at her and he wasn’t even sure where to start. He shifted on the bench a little and hummed.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds?” Kompass offered weakly.

"I'm still trying to decide how it sounds," Polaris said, with amusement lacing her voice.

"I think it's best if I say nothing else, then."

Rachet cheered from across the room, where he'd gone to talk to the distro boys, and then waved back at him.

“KOMPASS, HEY, LOOK HOW BIG IT IS! IT CAN’T EVEN FIT IN MY MOUTH."

Maybe half the room turned to look at him and Kompass just put his face in his hands, thankful that Max wasn't here to somehow sputter his way into making that a dick joke. Except, surprise, Kompass’ mind was now doing it _for_ him.

"Look at what I got!" he heard Rachet appear next to him a few moments later. "It's huge!"

"That _is_ a big one," Polaris agreed, utterly deadpan. "And I've seen a lot of lizards."

Kompass groaned into his hands. It was one thing to poke at the Wastelander for having dirty thoughts, but now he’s got the man’s voice in his head dumping dirt right into Kompass’ own without his say so. This is _terrible_. He can't even poke fun at Max anymore if this keeps on.

"I wanna save it for later, but I don't think it'll fit in my pocket." Rachet shifted, “don't think I want a dead lizard in my pants.”

“A floppy lizard is no use to anyone,” Polaris agreed with a straight face.

Kompass choked a little on his mealworm paste.

“You could maybe put it in a bag first, tuck the top of the bag under your belt like a pocket? All hidden,” she suggested, amusement clear in her voice.

“That’s,” Rachet lit up, “That’s a brill idea, just chrome! Kompass come on, who is this?”

Although they'd met before, Rachet was never much good with faces. She froze a bit and Kompass just glanced over because they’d never named each other before. Not like this, an introduction.

Polaris looked at him apprehensively, but when he shrugged and mouthed, _May I?,_ she didn’t become more tense. Polaris instead seemed surprised, and pleased.

Did she think he’d be ashamed of her? Kompass thought suddenly; that he wouldn’t name her as family?

So he turned to Rachet and firmly said, “This is Polaris, she’s my sister.” Rachet got that squirmy look about him when he was embarrassed that he’d forgotten, but pasted on a smile.

Polaris however beamed.

He then turned to Polaris, “and this is Rachet, he's crew.”

They nodded at each other, Polaris patting the still-blushing Rachet’s hand and mouthing ‘it’s okay’, and Kompass' insides felt all shine. And at this point, “What are you planning anyway? Might as well let me in on it now..”

“Well so Aus has been saying that…”

* * *

"He's comin'?" Ace asked

"He said he would," Furiosa said, her excitement quelling a little. Had she pressured him? Had he just agreed to get out of the moment? Or maybe he'd meant it at the time but had changed his mind since. Or maybe he'd just agreed to sleep in her quarters, and it was only her who'd thought she'd invited him for sexing.

Ace sighed from his place on the mattress and held out his arm, offering an embrace. She sank down next to him and tucked herself against his side.

"Bet we can make you feel good anyway," he murmured.

"That was never in doubt," she huffed, and saw his mouth curl up. Felt her own lips up lift in answer.

"Said he was real worried about hurtin' you.”

“Yeah.” She eyed him thoughtfully. “Got the sense of some of that from sparring today. When did he mention this to you?”

“Right after my surgery, he sat with me a bit, hashed some things out.” Ace thought about his words for a bit but then just fanged it. Nothing good came from keeping secrets between them, he'd learned that more than anything, these past forty days. “He seemed twitchy that you, well… let’s just say he seemed _calmed_ at the thought that we’d all beat him up if he looks at you wrong.”

" _What?_ "

"Okay, maybe not for _just_ lookin'."

"Hmm." Furiosa made a sound at him that from anyone else would be a question.

"He got real into the other day, when you were sittin' on Kompass," Ace said idly. “Stayed in the room with his hand on himself even.”

“Wonder what pushed him over to staying.”

"Think he's worried about doin' things _to_ you, not _with_ you, and there weren't any worry about that when you were sittin' on somebody, makin' him whimper."

“Do you mean that all this time the way to get him to stay has been to _sit on him_?”

“Maybe if you were doing the sittin’ yeah.” Ace teased, “ ‘S a good view. Tempt anybody to stick around."

She poked him in the arm, huffing a laugh. "Think it was about a little more than that."

"Maybe. Ferals probably don't know better. Takes 'em a while to learn."

Furiosa shook her head and stared idly for a while up at the ceiling. Ace just drifted a bit, breathing careful but liking the pattern of it, how it felt easier to get air even if it was still a bit sore. Liking that they could have moments like these, calm and lazy.

“He really seemed better with the idea of you guys beating him up?” She piped up after a moment.

“Situationally, yeah, if he fucks up with ya.” Ace couldn’t help the note of confusion from entering his voice. Usually he and Kompass would have to use that as a threat, not a lure. "Told him we wouldn't let him mess up. Seemed to comfort him some."

“I wouldn’t let him mess up either,” Furiosa pointed out.

“Think he likes someone else watching your back,” Ace shrugged, not understanding it completely himself, coming from a feral. But if that isn’t a sign of the man being crew, he didn’t much know what would be.

She nodded, going quiet. "I really hope he comes tonight," she confessed softly and leaned into him.

"So do I," Ace said, petting her hair.


	46. Technique

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Technique: Specialized moves given names to help communicate what to do to another person._
> 
> "You can join in, you just can't move from your spot," Kompass told Ace gleefully.
> 
> "It's like that, is it?" Ace snorted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TODAY WE'RE GOING TO SMUT TOWN!

When Max walked in, Rachet was setting Ace onto the ledge, telling him to take it slow all the while. Ace knew he was not recovered yet, though he'd been strong enough to be on his feet a while earlier today. He was still under strict rest orders, and stricter supervision by Furiosa and the others. Rachet fussed until Ace felt like he was close to being suffocated by cushions and care. His face felt strange with the feeling of it, and Ace blamed it on the surgery.

“Hey, stay by me for a bit up here?” Ace asked Rachet quietly, “Don’t want to overwhelm the guy at first, yeah?”

Rachet glanced over at Max and nodded, unconcerned, maybe even a little relieved. Ace knew the warboy was, well, _picky_ about certain things that might take some explaining, sensations he didn't handle too well, and Max's first time with them was not a good moment to figure out where they might clash.

When he was fully settled and surrounded by cushions, Rachet settled down next to him, pressing close like he sometimes did at night, a warm, solid contact. Ace might have felt a little smothered at the caretaking if he didn’t feel so fond.

Didn’t meant that stopped him from heckling the other war boy a bit, elbowing him a little.

"Nothing strenuous,” Austeyr said to Ace with an air of payback. He was also still recovering but was further along, and had made himself comfortable on the mattress with probably an excessive flapping of his arms. Kompass ducked away, next to him, a fond grumbling. The range of motion that had been returned to the lancer seemed to delight him every time, and most of the crew didn’t begrudge him for it although Kompass was getting visibly annoyed at how many time he’d gotten accidentally whacked in the face.

Privately Ace was wondering how much of an accident it all was and was waiting for Kompass to catch on. He’d like a front row seat to that, honestly.

"You can join in, you just can't move from your spot," Kompass told Ace gleefully.

"It's like that, is it?" Ace snorted. Then he spied Max, drifted to a halt just inside the doorway, looking uncertain. "Ha! Good that you're here."

Max startled a little at this reception.

"I'm not allowed much yet, but _you_ ," Ace quirked a grin, marvelling at how it made his face feel, "can act in my stead."

“Delegating, are we?” Furiosa murmured, smile lurking around her mouth. She was sitting on the mattress, taking off her boots.

"I am growing into this Imperator thing," Ace said grandly. 

Rachet giggled, and Max’s face turned tentative, staring at the spread of them all. Furiosa reached out a hand to him, eyes hopeful, and he was already moving to kneel at her side before Ace could direct that he should help her take off her arm.

“If you do it wrong, you’ll get an earful from me,” Ace said sternly, chiding, perhaps just a touch excessively so for the situation and it caused Max to dart his eyes over. Ace nodded at him, remembering their conversation on that ledge, the man’s fears, and Max apparently heard what Ace had meant, because his shoulders drifted down a bit from around his ears.

_I won't let you fuck up._

Furiosa had looked between them and eyebrowed Ace a question.

“I got this, Boss.” He returned. Then nearly laughs into his next words, “Imperator, ‘member? Seem to recall someone giving me the belt for it.”

“Wonder who could be so foolish.” She shot back.

“Not me.” Max grumbled.

Furiosa looked at the man like they just shared a joke and then slipped out of the final binds for her arm. Which Max put aside, and then tentatively reached for Furiosa's shoulder. She nodded encouragingly, and he trailed his hands over her skin.

By this time Kompass had settled himself on the mattress and was heckling Austeyr for not healing faster and gaining better control of his hands. The other war boy just hummed and told Kompass he needed a smaller head so it wouldn’t get in the way of his arms.

Furiosa made a small sound of frustration and Ace looked back at her. Apparently impatient with Max's hands not getting to the muscles that were aching, she pulled off her top. The motion and its resulting sudden exposed skin put an abrupt end to the chatter in the room.

"We not moving fast enough for ya, Boss?" Kompass asked, voice low and warm.

He reached out to put his hand in her side, and she leaned into it a little, making a pleased humming sound.

"I don't know, what are you thinking?"

Kompass paused to wait for their attention. "Think it’s a good time to race lizards."

Furiosa twisted her head towards him. "What?!"

Max groaned and dropped his face against her shoulder. “You're _never_ going to let go of that, huh?"

"Nope," Kompass grinned. "Didn't want to disappoint, since you seem to be expecting lizards and all."

Austeyr had his face in his hands, face red, shoulders moving as if he was laughing, and Ace tried to stifle his chuckle.

"Hey Rachet, is that a lizard in your pocket or…" Kompass continued, and they had _planned_ this, Ace realised. Maybe just to tease Max, maybe to take away from the seriousness of the moment of the wastelander new in their midst. 

"Yes. Yes it is," Rachet grinned, carefully whipping his lizard out.

Furiosa snorted a laugh. "You are terrible, all of you."

Max was chuckling softly, forehead still against Furiosa's bare shoulder, looking relaxed instead of tense.

“Stop playing with your lizard and give it here,” Ace shook his head and held out his hand.

“Yes Imperator,” Rachet replied cheekily, and handed it over, "You can play with my lizard if you want."

Austeyr howled with laughter, and then laugh-cursed as the motion pulled on his stitches.

“I’m gonna stuff it in a box, that’s what I’m gonna do,” Ace retorted, over the sounds of laughter. He put the foodstuff away.

"How do you _deal_ with these guys," Max asked Furiosa, laughing into his hands.

"It helps I like lizards too," she grinned back, leaning into him.

“Don’t mmm, think those like being constrained.” Max muttered and would you look at that, the man blushed. "Rather, um, move freely."

Ace felt reassured with the joke, just the fact that Max felt comfortable enough to join in with the silliness.

"Good point. You should take off your pants," Ace said imperiously.

"I think that was a suggestion that we _all_ take off our pants," Furiosa smirked, unbuttoning her leathers. She wriggled her hips backward, and Kompass automatically reached out to grab the cuffs so she could slip out more easily.

Max seemed to stare awkwardly for a moment, hands twitching at loose ends, so Ace encouraged him, “Max, you heard her. Depants yourself.”

"Willing to help," Furiosa flashed Max a grin, and that got him moving on his pants. He left on his shirt, which… weird, none of them ever wore shirts and it seemed strange to wear one during sexing especially. Touchin' felt good on skin, why'd you wanna keep cloth on? Austeyr must have agreed, because he reached for the hem, tugging it up.

They all startled when Max hissed, smacking Austeyr's hand away, and moved so his back was to the wall, eyes wide and arms tightly around himself as if to defend his shirt, eyes darting at them as if they’d blame him for trying to keep it.

"Uh, hey, sorry," Austeyr stumbled, wincing. "Didn't mean to— you can keep it on if you want."

Ace remembered that as a bloodbag— former bloodbag— the man probably had a tattoo on his back. Maybe he didn't like it to be seen. Ace wouldn't have either, if he'd had a tattoo like that. Bloodbags usually had their shirt on anyway, he must be more used to it.

"Don't need to take off anything you don't want," Ace confirmed, pitching his voice low and soothing. “Nothing wrong with that.”

Max stared at him for a bit, and edged back a little more onto the mattress.

Furiosa was laying still, watching, saying lowly, “Hey. You’re okay now.”

Ace thought quickly, looking at Max’s cornered expression, and caught Kompass’ gaze, flicking his eyes towards Furiosa. They ain’t getting nowhere if Max was getting one of them day fevers, and none of them liked to be stared at for their night fevers so he’s guessing the feral’s probably the same about this. Kompass gave a small nod in agreement and ran the back of his nails along Furiosa's side. She squirmed, distracted from Max, making a little squeaking sound that had them all chuckling. Austeyr caught on, bent down to trail a long lick up the sensitive skin of her inner arm.

"Aus!" it burst out of her, trying for admonishment but tinged with laughter, and she reached out to pinch his nipple in retaliation. Kompass chuckled and reached across Furiosa to pinch the warboy's other nipple, and then they were a squirming, laughing tangle as Austeyr tried to simultaneously get away and move closer.

Ace watched Max relax by slow degrees now the attention was away from him, and nodded to himself.

When they'd all calmed down again a few minutes later Max cautiously moved away from the wall, and Austeyr, noticing, moved back a little so the Wastelander could be next to Furiosa.

Max hovered close, closer than he’d been to the sexing in all that long while, but still only watching Kompass knead Furiosa's back, a hand gripped tight on his dick as if to prevent himself from doing anything.

"Come on Max, touch her," Ace suggested. "More hands are always better."

Austeyr chuckled and stroked the back of her knee from where he lay, and Max finally put his hands on her, lightly trailing up her arm and to her shoulder. Then he leaned in to kiss her collarbone, the hollow there, and she sighed an encouraging "Oh.."

He was hard - they all were - and Furiosa made an appreciative noise as she lounged against the mattress, lightly trailing her hand down the outside of his hip. Kompass nosed along her shoulder and neck, and she laughed a little at the way she kept getting distracted. Ace recognized the indulgent sound, kind of wry, kind of self-deprecating; he liked it because it’d usually meant that the crew was working together well, that they could induce a sound like that in her.

Austeyr reached over him to stroke her side, and Max stilled for a moment at the warboy's arm draped over him. It’d reminded of the skittishness of some new crew, or hell, even Furiosa before Sprocket and him got her use to touch.

"Shine?" Austeyr asked softly, and Max breathed out, moved a little as if trying out the touch, feeling Austeyr's body closely behind him but not pressing.

Kompass lifted his mouth from Furiosa's breast with a suckling pop sound that made her twitch. He reached over to tap Max's arm twice, deliberately.

"If you want something to stop," he murmured, meeting Max's eyes for a brief moment to make sure the man understood, Furiosa watching the two intently. When Max nodded, Furiosa's hand came up to cup the back of Kompass' head, pulling him back to her nipple as she sprawled fully back on the bed, and he chuckled roughly against her skin.

Max seemed to like the sight of that, Ace thought. But then, he thought as adjusted himself in his pants, it’s not like it was a sight not to like.

Furiosa hooked her nub lightly around Max's head and encouraged him to her other breast, and it was hard to tell who made the inadvertent moan that followed, but Ace felt himself twitch in his pants.

Austeyr moved in a little closer, lightly pressed up against Max's back so he could trail his fingers down over Furiosa's belly. Either the man didn't mind the contact, or he was distracted, but he gave no reaction. Ace saw the war boy lean up to speak into Max’s ear and his mouth tightened around Furiosa’s breast until she arched against them all.

Furiosa's hand came down to grab onto Austeyr's forearm, and she steered him further down her belly, to where she wanted him. His fingers trailed to her pubic hair for a long moment, teasing, and then, judging by her approving moan, found their mark. Her hips twitched.

“Boss, you don’t need to do anythin’ today, we’re gonna make you feel so shine. Make you think of England.”

Max’s head darted up and the strangest expression crossed his face. Kompass’ head popped up, looking confused and Rachet murmured a questioning sound.

“ _England_?” Ace asked for them all.

"Yeah, Feng said that was when you laid back and let other people make you feel real good. Thinking of England."

“Oh well, then, you all better make her real Englandish, boys.”

Max pretty much crashed his face between Furiosa’s breasts, shaking a little. Ace would be more concerned but he thought maybe the wastelander was laughing. Strange sort of humor, that man. The wastes could do that to a person.

“Real,” Max gasped for breath, still chuckling as he raised his chin to rest it on her breastbone, “real English, yeah.”

"Sounds good," Furiosa gave him a bemused look, “but you know what would sound better?”

"His mouth on you?" Ace suggested. Not like it was hard to guess where her mind was at.

Kompass and Austeyr exchanged a look over her head, and nudged Furiosa’s legs up from either side of her, the soles of her feet flat on the mattress while she swatted at them, laughing.

Max had a look on his face like he was startled at how good that idea seemed, and shifted down to between her legs, one hand curling around her thigh as if he needed the contact.

After a long moment Furiosa made an impatient sound that suggested Max wasn't getting to the point as she might have liked, and Ace chuckled. Austeyr and Kompass both pressed in against her torso, surrounding her, anchoring her with their arms and bodies just as she liked.

"Come on man, don't keep her waiting," Ace said.

Max hummed and his head moved. Ace couldn't see very well from this angle, but Furiosa made a hiss that sounded like 'yesss'. Her hand clenched around Kompass's forearm.

Ace had wondered if this would be like usual when new crew did this for the first time, either hesitant and with Furiosa getting impatient, or overly enthusiastic and needing instruction to make her feel good. Kompass moved down a little in anticipation of needing to instruct, but the man was apparently experienced in this, because judging by the noises he tried a few things, listened carefully to her reactions, and had her gasping in a short amount of time.

He seemed to be enjoying himself, Ace noticed with approval.

"Fuck," Furiosa choked out at some point, hand blindly reaching down to grasp Max's hair, "Fuck, fuck—"

Max didn't stop, just licked and sucked at her with even more enthusiasm, and she cursed again. 

"That was an instruction," Ace clarified.

Max paused, looking up with his face wet with her juices, and it took him a moment to focus and understand. He darted his eyes around and then to Ace, as if asking for permission. Ace met his eyes and then flicked over his gaze to Furiosa, who was making it very obvious what she wanted.

“What’re you lookin’ at me for? Sounded plenty clear to me.”

Furiosa tugged on his hair, trying to move him up over her, and he finally hummed and went.

"Yeah?" he asked her.

Her "Yesss.." trailed off into a moan as he rutted against her. Ace wasn't sure what was happening but Furiosa nudged Kompass, and Kompass moved his hand down between them.

Max made a startled sound at the touch, but Kompass clearly helped the man's gearstick into Furiosa, because he trailed off into a groan. She sighed with low-voiced satisfaction as he seated himself in fully, encouraged by Aus’ hand petting his lower back. Stayed there for a long moment, leaning up on trembling arms so he could look into her face.

Max made little grunting sounds, and Ace thought Furiosa was using her inner muscles to squeeze him like she sometimes did, until he finally gave in and began to move. His eyes were closed, and Furiosa cupped his jaw with her palm, drew his face down to her until she could whisper in his ear.

Ace couldn't hear what she said, but Max moaned and let his forehead sink to her collarbone, hips speeding up. Not long later Furiosa's legs came up to wrap around his back, as if she wanted to keep him right there, and Max made a helpless sound, hips suddenly losing their rhythm. Ace couldn't blame him. He'd never been able to hold back against that feeling either, the way she anchored you against her, makin' it clear beyond all doubt that she wanted you right where you were.

"Sorry," Max murmured, panting against her skin.

"Shh," Furiosa smiled, petting his head. "That felt chrome."

She guided him to the side of her, touched her forehead to his for a moment, and then looked at Austeyr, still recovering from his surgery. Not that his gearstick gave any indication of that.

"You. Stay put," she told the warboy, with a grin that promised all sorts of good things. She moved over and straddled him, ground down against his gearstick until Austeyr was slick and wet with her fluids and Max's. Austeyr's hands came up, one on her hip and one to her breast, and his eyes were fixed on her face like she was the only thing in his world right now.

Ace couldn't blame him. Next to them, Kompass was stroking her back, Max watching with half-lidded eyes of somebody who'd just been sexed up right good, his hand on her thigh. When she leaned up, her hand on Austeyr's shoulder for balance, Max hummed a question and slid down his touch, helping them align so she could sink down with a groan of satisfaction.

She smiled down at Max in thanks, and Ace thought the man looked a little… Not that he _hadn't_ , before, but maybe even more now. Like they all looked at her.

"Nuh-uh, don't move," she said mock-sternly to Austeyr when the warboy's hips wanted to twitch up, and she began to ride him, hips moving slow and grinding, taking him however she liked. Austeyr slipped his hand to between their bodies, giving her his fingers against her clit. When he got them just right, her head tipped back with a breathless sound, and Ace heard himself gasp too, his own gearstick pulsing.

She took her sweet time with Austeyr, seeming to enjoy the little noises he made, the way the others kept hands on her, supporting and encouraging. Finally she began to move with more intent, her back gleaming with new sweat, and Ace wanted to lick her spine, wanted to _be_ there, share this, feel this rush with her. He wanted to tell Max to do what he himself couldn't get close enough for, but the words got stuck in his throat at the sight of them. At that moment Kompass bent close to nip at her hip, a hand sliding down and under, playing with Austeyr's balls probably, because the warboy made a strangled shout, hips twitching up into Furiosa, who shivered. She let herself sink forward as Austeyr's thrusts stilled, taking care not to put her weight on his still-healing torso, and he stroked her jaw, her neck, her head, smiling up at her with a dazed expression.

Kompass was kneeling next to her now, kissing her neck.

"Enough or more?" Ace heard his soft murmur, and she laughed " _More_ ," and it struck Ace _dumb_ , a bubble of awe and joy low in his belly at how this was _happening_ , how they got to have this, got to have each other and even if he couldn't be down there touching them, how _good_ it was. 

Furiosa let herself roll sideways off Austeyr, into Kompass' arms with her back against his chest. He made a happy noise and moved them so she was facing Max. Furiosa lifted her top leg, making space, and Ace could hear the slick sounds as Kompass rubbed the head of his cock through the mess of seed between her legs and then slowly pushed into her.

She moaned long and low, and next to Ace, Rachet moaned too, hand gripping himself, watching avidly. Ace was debating if he had enough energy and mobility to do the same, or if it would just be frustrating, when Rachet's free hand landed in Ace's crotch with a questioning hum, and when he nodded Rachet leaned into his side and stroked him a little distractedly, eyes fixed on Furiosa coming undone in Kompass' arms.

Kompass had her cradled against his chest, her head resting on his upper arm. One of his arms kept her snug against him, the other hand was at her clit, making her hips twitch while he fucked into her slow and powerful. Max was watching that hand, his own hand playing gently with her nipples. Her hand was under his shirt, lightly scratching his chest from the looks of it. 

Ace could see exactly what needed to happen. Maybe it just hadn't occurred to Max yet, sometimes it was easier to see things from a little further away

"You could, ah—" Ace began, but Rachet chose that moment for a squeezing, twisting stroke, and Ace almost choked on his words. Rachet gave him an innocent glance. "You could use your mouth on her," Ace managed.

Furiosa moaned at the suggestion, and the Wastelander's eyes widened. He shifted down to position himself, not waiting for Kompass to move away his fingers but fastening his mouth over both fingers and clit. Kompass laughed softly and patted the man's head fondly with this other hand.

Between a skillful mouth and a skillful fucking, Furiosa's body revved up hard, to the point where Max had to wrap his arms around her to hold still her hips. She made a rough keening sound, and then Ace watched with awe as she redlined, her spine arching as she spasmed wildly. Kompass had his arms tightly around her, keeping her safe and still just how she liked it, and Max was able to keep going, draw it out for her until she cried out, hand uncoordinatedly landing on his shoulder.

Somewhere in all that Kompass had also come, but Ace had barely registered, attention entirely on Furiosa and on the hand on his own gearstick. He drew Rachet closer against his side and cupped his own hand around the warboy's, increasing the pressure just enough to—

"Fuck…" Furiosa mumbled finally, sounding drowsy and a little giddy, half-laughing.

"What, again?" Max's face was wet.

"...not an instruction this time," Kompass sighed against the back of her head, already sinking toward sleep.

Austeyr chuckled, moving so he could lick Furiosa clean. She made tiny whimper sounds, body over-sensitive, and hands reached out to stroke her soothingly, bringing the gravity back to her limbs by slow degrees.

Her eyes met Ace, and she made a beckoning gesture before her hand flopped back down. Ace chuckled and let Rachet help him down to the bed.

"Nice delegation work," Furiosa told him, her face still half buried against Kompass' bicep. The glow in her face, the way her body was draped against Kompass, the utter content in her, made Ace feel light in his stomach, and oddly proud that he'd been able to give this to her. He stroked the back of his fingers over her cheek, and she gave him a drowsy smile.

Before Ace settled down he sought out Max with his eyes. The man had moved to the outside of the group, but he was turned toward them all, contentedly leaning up on his elbow. Ace raised his eyebrows at the man in question - _'Are you okay?'_ \- and got a nod in return. 

Max’s arm was draped over a jumble of limbs, fingertips lightly resting on Furiosa’s arm, connecting himself to the rest of them and Ace was almost afraid to call attention to it. Ace honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they came up on more stumbles in the future, more moments when the other man found himself retreating or some strangeness of the Wasteland came to attack. But he thought they might be able to figure it out, between all of them.

That’s what crew’s for.

* * *

  
Furiosa woke in a tangled pile of warm bodies, the awareness returning to her body slowly. She felt good, a little sore but in a nice way, a way that reminded her good sexing had happened recently. When she remembered exactly how that had come to be, she felt her face grow warm with the memories. They had— and _Max_ had— and it had been so _good_.

She shifted a little, stretching out her limbs. Wiggled her toes and made a comfortable little sound.

She heard an amused huff of breath and saw Ace was awake, his head propped up on Rachet's shin. He met her eyes and then looked over to where—

 _Oh_. Where Max was asleep on the bed with them, curled up on his side

Furiosa found herself smiling helplessly at it and when she looked over at Ace, he was smiling too. Furiosa idly reached out and trailed a fingertip over his lips, wondering if he looked different - happier? - than she remembered or if it was the glow of the moment making it seem like he did.


	47. Top Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Top-out : To complete a route by ascending over the top of the structure being climbed._  
>  Johanna hummed a little as she carefully poured the hot water onto the tea leaves with a hand made steady by long practice with tattooing. The process was soothing even if it was much different from the simple act of making tea from before the world fell; now the water had to be fetched from a communal tap instead of from a kitchen sink, and heated to boiling by the concentrated sunlight in a solar oven.

"I'm uh... looking for, for uh, Treb?"

Treb looked up at the very young voice. It was a warpup, so young he was barely painted. Or no, they did that differently now, didn't they? The young boy, perhaps even younger than the age they usually went to the Dens, had a symbol on his chest and forehead, and swirls around his arms. His skin was a shade brown not far from Treb's own, and there was something nice about not seeing it covered up like it shouldn't be seen. The pup was hopping from one foot to the other, his little face somewhere halfway between nervous and excited.

"That's me," Treb said, gesturing the boy closer to where he was sitting amidst the spare parts that might at some point be something resembling a guitar. The boy looked behind him uncertainly, and Treb had thought he'd seemed very young to be sent down to the barracks on his own, but apparently somebody had come with him.

That person stayed out of sight, but the pup, apparently encouraged, came into the new Doof Room. He fell silent as he looked around with wide eyes, at Clef who was touching up his paint, but especially at the instruments, whole and in pieces.

"I'm Treb," said Treb, trying to draw the boy's attention. "Was there something you wanted to tell me?"

"Oh!" the pup stared longingly at the small stack of metal tonemakers by Treb's right hand. "Miss Marienny says... says that drumming is, umm.. the day after Tenday, at um… at six bells," it came out haltingly, clearly trying to repeat the message he'd been given.

"And did Miss Marienny say where it would be?"

"Umm…" the little face went panicked, and Treb almost regretted asking - he was sure he'd be able to find the music once it started.

Somebody leaned around the doorway, and it turned out to be an older war pup, looking impatient.. "In the mess hall," he said, and the young pup nodded with relief.

"Thank you for the message," he told the pup seriously. "What's your name?"

"Damar."

"Will you be there too?"

Damar nodded eagerly.

"Do you have an instrument? To make music?"

A headshake.

"Want one?"

The pup's eyes went huge, and the older pup’s head popped back in from around the doorway, and a few minutes later Damar walked away talking excitedly to his companion, both playing with the bells Treb had given them.

* * *

Johanna hummed a little as she carefully poured the hot water onto the tea leaves with a hand made steady by long practice with tattooing. The process was soothing even if it was much different from the simple act of making tea from before the world fell; now the water had to be fetched from a communal tap instead of from a kitchen sink, and heated to boiling by the concentrated sunlight in a solar oven. Now the tea leaves had to be personally harvested and carefully dried in the sun with a mesh grate weighing down the delicate leaves so they wouldn’t all flutter away. The tea became a product of hours, or days if you counted the growing, instead of just grabbing a tea bag and turning on the stove.

 _Everything is so much more difficult now,_ the History Woman mused glancing up at Feng who’d remained staring out at the horizon. _Everyone, too_.

She rose up carefully from beside the oven, tea pot and cups carefully balanced on a tray. The table where Feng sat was not too far away, under one of the shade screens placed in the middle of the gardens so that workers had a flat clean surface for processing the produce. For the most part the day’s work was done, though half the long table was still covered in drying trays.

Giddy placed her own tray in the center, and sat on the bench across from Feng. She measured the other woman’s expression for a bit, before checking the tea and then pouring them each a cup.

One cup she placed at Feng’s elbow.

The other she lifted to smell, and to sip, to help her wait.

Feng glanced down at the cup. Told it sternly, “I’m not upset.”

Johanna hummed. The tea was very nice, not over steeped, smooth.

Feng seemed to snarl and then tossed back the cup like it was something alcoholic, choked a little at the heat but swallowed anyway and then set down the cup like it personally offended her.

"He's fine, anyway."

“Settled back in Furiosa’s quarters I hear,” Johanna said.

"I'll take the stitches out in a couple of days."

She refilled both Feng and her cups. "You could let Gale do it, if you'd rather not."

“Why would— it’s _my_ surgery and I’ll see it to the end,” the healer protested hotly, “Just because it didn’t go as smooth as the others doesn’t mean I’m going to let him just—”

Johanna raised an eyebrow and sipped at her tea placidly and let Feng’s words sputter against themselves. “ ‘Let him just—’ ?”

“Look, that feral stepped up didn’t he?”

“All by himself, yes. That was fortunate.”

“I hate relying on luck,” Feng grimaced, and on anyone else Johanna would call it sulking. "I should be above that. It was a simple procedure, I shouldn’t have needed to rely on, on—"

“Do you really have an objection to that man?”

She could see Feng trying to come up with something logical to respond with, something that didn't sound like Joe would have said it.

“Or do you hate relying on people so much?”

“People are untrustworthy,” Feng scoffed, “Can’t give them the chance to fail on you.”

“All people?” Johanna prodded and waved at their cups, “Are you saying that I would have poisoned you just now? Plucked the wrong leaves?”

“Nothing like that!”

“Why not?” She gestured around them. “There’s enough herbs here that are medicine and poison both, you and I know that.”

“You, you’re,” Feng stumbled over, “I _know_ you.”

“And you don’t know the others?”

“It’s not the same!”

“So you’re saying you don’t know the others enough to trust them,” Giddy sighed.

“You’re twisting my words,” Feng muttered and drank her tea.

“What makes them untrustworthy then?”

“They don’t have a stake in anything I value, they’re not—” Feng sputtered, “They’re not women, how could they know?”

"Do you think Furiosa is wrong to trust her crew? That Max fellow?"

"What? How does that— that has nothing to do with anything."

"Except that they are not women, but they got to know her, and now they have a stake." Giddy pressed, “And what of when Furiosa refused to talk with you all those many years, calling you untrustworthy?”

“She didn’t even want to take the time to _listen_.” Feng countered, “She was so blinded by her losses that—”

“—it was nothing like what you would’ve done?”

“I don’t refuse to listen! I don’t refuse to _see_.”

And Johanna smiled sweet and wide, “Then I ask you to come with me to that party in a couple days, the one where the women agreed to play music for the war boys. And listen. And see. I daresay some of them will prove themselves trustworthy, if you're willing to see."

Feng’s mouth opened and closed, as she realized the corner she’d been painted into.

“The girls you apprenticed would like to be there, and I think it’d be nice if you give them encouragement. It would be good for them to see you be open to these things, it will give them a chance to learn new ways in this new Citadel. None of the girls will integrate into the Citadel if they don't have a chance to see what that could be like, and to see it modelled by the people they admire."

Feng gave her a sour look, and Johanna smiled into her teacup, not pressing her victory.

She felt Feng’s gaze and waited. Eventually the other woman sighed as if expelling every last bit of air from her lungs.

Johanna sensed more than saw her shoulders loosen and fall.

They sat in silence for a while, enjoying the gentle breeze in this sheltered spot. At some point Feng got up to fetch hot water and pour them both another cup of tea, and then sat back down next to Johanna instead of opposite her.

Johanna glanced at her but Feng didn't meet her eyes as she poured her cup. Johanna tapped twice on the table in thanks.

Feng stared at her fingers and said, “I think at this point we may be the only people who even remember what that means.”

“The tea or the thanks?” Johanna replied.

“Both, either, think they still even want this culture, out there?” Feng nodded towards the wastes.

Johanna heard, _do you think they even still want me?_ , and bumped her shoulder gently against Feng's, “I think you give people too little credit not to want what’s so lovely.”

“Hmph,” Feng muttered, but didn't move away.

Johanna’s shoulder felt electric, jittery, aware.

Careful and slow, Feng gradually leaned in closer and finally put her arm around the small of Johanna's back. Johanna found herself breathing shallowly so that she didn't appear to be affected but wasn't sure how much of that failed. She found a smile wrecking the edges of her mouth as they sat together contentedly, talking softly about the upcoming Tenday and the traditions that were developing.

"Capable came to me this morning, asked me what 'thinking of England' means," Johanna said at some point. "She'd heard some of the warboys talking about it… Did they get that from you?"

Feng only sputtered.

* * *

Max sat down in a window ledge, nothing very much on his mind. That in itself was unusual enough, and he hummed with an unfamiliar sense of comfort, letting the last sunrays warm his back. He'd slept well, it was almost startling to feel rested, to not feel like he was fighting against exhaustion.

"Don't you look like you're feelin' good today," Vicks voice said from a little distance, and he blinked open his eyes. She made her way to him, still a little unevenly on her sore leg, but moving well enough.

"Hows, hmm, how's the knee?"

She gestured to it with a wince. "Slower than I'd like, but I reckon it's gettin' better finally. Be nice to be out and about more, mingle some and really explore this place instead of sticking to the top levels being all stuck in bed and hovered over." She laughed suddenly, "Just enough time to be roped into helping with this shindig they’re all fired up about.” 

Max nodded and watched her watch him carefully as she approached.

When he didn't tense up she sat down next to him. "You seem settled. That got anything to do with finally gettin' a good night's sleep?"

Max's mind immediately summoned the images of why he'd slept so well, the pleasant tiredness of orgasm, the satisfaction of making Furiosa gasp, the tangle of sex-relaxed bodies he'd curled himself around. He could feel his face grow hot under her gaze. 

She was opening her mouth, clearly to make a comment, and Max was already bracing himself when—

There was the sound of running boots and many voices. Shouting, some sounds of bodies crashing about. And they both looked up as a Warboy came barrelling around the far corner, catching his speed with a hand slapped against the wall and running past them with long strides.

"You wanna get outta the way!" He called as he passed, turning left at the split, and just in that moment the din of many shouting children revealed itself to be a pack of older warpups. They were running, bare feet slapping on the stone, shouting encouragement at each other not to lose 'him'.

Max startled to his feet as they filled the hallway, watching as they ignored him completely in their eagerness to catch the Warboy that had just passed. The front runners had apparently seen where he'd gone, because they also went left at the end.

Max glanced at Vicks who just shrugged.

Before either of them could say anything a second group of pups followed, younger and smaller, a bit more drawn out. They slowed down to the end of the hallway, not having seen there the previous ones had gone. One of the stragglers gave Max and Vicks a pleading look, and Max grunted and pointed at the left corridor.

The kid perked up and ran to the front of the group, leading them left. As they trooped away a second Warboy jogged up, carrying a squirming pup under his arm like a sack of potatoes, and as they saw him the last kids squealed and rushed after the faster group ahead of them.

The Warboy slowed down, nodded to Max and Vicks in greeting, and then jogged after the pups.

"Huh," Max summarized. The last Warboy was clearly moderating his speed to give the pups a chance to outrun him. Some kind of chasing game? But the whole thing, the excitement of the pups, gave him a strange sort of dual-sight, being unable to not notice how it recalled his own mad dash through the Citadel that day that felt so very long ago. He couldn’t decide whether to feel amused at the children, or uncomfortable at the memory of the excitement and whooping, or upset that the young war boys were being taught how to chase, or just calling it another quirk of a people who were slowly becoming his own.

“Let's check it out?” Vicks asked, a wry sort of look about her mouth.

“Mmph.”

They arrived at a fork that would have lead down to the mess hall, Vicks started heading down the other. Max grunted at her in negation.

“They went down this fork - can hear them,” she refuted.

“ ‘s the long way around to the mess, gathers hallways from other levels.”

She blinked, then nodded at him and followed. When they arrived at the mostly empty room, there was only a few war boys there with an air of anticipation and amusement. Max recognized Oti and Kompass. Not long after, the first war boy dashed into the room and started throwing himself over and under the tables, with the pups closest to his heels following suit.

Max and Vicks watched in bemusement as the Warboy was 'captured' in a dogpile and surrounded by pups. They cheered when he raised his arms in the air and sat down on the ground, surrendering. The last of the smaller pups were just trickling into the mess, followed at barely more than a few paces by the sweeper, who put down the pup he'd been carrying and grinned.

“Bring that rusty smeg back to base!”

“Yes boss!” The bigger pups, the ones who were better conditioned and not out of breath, surrounded the Warboy they'd chased and grabbed hold. It took a moment to get enough hands in the right places to lift the Warboy, but they'd clearly done this before, and a moment later the Warboy was getting carried off, with a fair bit of shouting and navigating around tables and benches. The spectating warboys were cheering and hooting.

Max noticed that Kompass and Oti were quietly pointing out specific pups to each other, perhaps keeping an eye on prospective new members for their crews.

"This happen before?" He asked Kompass.

"Oh, every day," the Warboy grinned. "Gotta get 'em to sleep somehow, right?"

Max grunted. He could see the point of letting the kids do some running around before bedtime, and it made sense that they had to build up stamina before they could become warboys.

"Just used to be lower down, keepin' the pups outta notice, you know," Kompass was saying. "It's nice they're allowed to run 'em up here now, ‘specially with them all riled up about music and that party, the lot of 'em have been making a racket. Takes more to tire’em. Got some new routes we can—"

A sudden humming tone sounded through the mess, and all the warboys froze to listen, bodies going tense with anticipation. Max had heard this sound once before, when he was being bled empty into a warboy who had, as sick as he was, immediately come to attention as if the sound alone had flooded his system with sudden adrenaline.

It was the sound of the ancient speaker system coming on, of somebody fumbling with the microphone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chinese cultural idiom: tapping two fingers next to your tea cup (as someone is pouring it) is a gesture of thanks towards the pourer.


	48. Wallerina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Wallerina: A graceful female climber who appears to dance up the climbing wall._
> 
> “Furiosa?”
> 
> Furiosa closed her eyes for a moment. Then turned around, fingers to her lips for an ear-piercing whistle. Before everybody could turn to her she was shouting, “Battle stations!”
> 
> Her chest was sore from projecting the words into the wind, she told herself.

Council for the day had been moved to the gardens, enjoying the still-mild heat of the morning. They'd finished up early, though a lot of the council members were sticking around to chat.

A warpup was suddenly standing in front of Furiosa, ducking in close to make himself heard.

"Lookout says there's a convoy on the horizon."

Furiosa tensed, “Numbers and make.”

“About eight small riders and a three trucks.”

She looked around, at the council members slowly drifting away or chatting about how they were going to make the Citadel better. She so hoped for a moment of peace for them, she hoped it was something else and went over to the lookout post to look for herself but.

There they were, all but visible to the naked eye, their dust spreading out low and threatening behind them.

She felt Oti come up next to her, subbing for Ace while he recovered from his surgery still.

“Furiosa?”

Furiosa closed her eyes for a moment. Then turned around, fingers to her lips for an ear-piercing whistle. Before everybody could turn to her she was shouting, “ _Battle stations!_ ”

Her chest was sore from projecting the words into the wind, she told herself.

They were under-manned for keeping the entire Citadel secure, but thanks to the siege and the drills they'd done for it, most people were pretty clear on their roles. She'd sent a runner to call the alarm over the loudspeaker, so Furiosa arrived in the council hall to find most of the people she needed already where she needed them, voices calling immediately to her to let her know which crews were in place.

Gilly brought her SKS and then stayed near as reloader.

The convoy rumbled in between the Citadel towers a few minutes later. Furiosa signaled for ‘standby’ because something about the pattern of those cars…

The lead car honked its horn, and somebody bellowed through a rigged up bullhorn.

“ _YO. FURIOSA!_ ”

…it reminded her of how the Citadel rigs would line up to wait for the lift.

Kompass handed her a looking glass

Ace was - or should be - resting in her quarters. His crew, lead by Oti, was positioned in the garages, guarding the lift platform. She suddenly wished she was too, or that she had a way to talk to Ace, because— _are you seeing this too??_

"Boss, are those… Gastown boys?" Kompass asked, sounding like he was just as surprised.

She handed him the looking glass. "Look a lot like warboys to me. If I’m not completely wrong, that’s Volt there up front.”

"Shoutin'? Yeah, that's Volt all right," he agreed as he took a look himself. "What the hell did they do to come on a Gastown convoy?"

"Let's find out," she shrugged, reaching for the microphone. She flicked the switch, heard the loud buzz, and carefully held the thing a hands length from her mouth.

 _“State your purpose!_ ” Her shout echoed between the towers.

“ _Furiosa_!" He sounded pleased even through the bullhorn attached to the truck. " _We're here to trade_!”

“What” she heard murmurs behind her.

“Did he say trade?”

“Think we should believe 'im?”

She turned back to her sheltered little lookout position, half-hidden behind the water controls. No sense leaving herself exposed to snipers. “ _You speak for Gastown_?”

“ _...all of Gastown yeah. Got myself made Boss!_ " Volt shouted.

That caused another flurry of murmurs to rise up behind her and Furiosa quietly reined in her own questions because first of all:

“ _Why should we believe you?_ ”

“ _‘ere look, we brought some barrels! Right prime guzzoline! You can test it iffn you think I’m tryin’ to cheat!_ " He called. " _Jus' thought with all this new 'leadership sit-chu-ation' we'd try'n get along._ ”

"...and they are out of water," Toast murmured. “If these old figures of Joe’s are right, their stores would’ve run near dry by now.”

“And they all look parched and jittery,” Kompass murmured, eyes still plastered to the spyglass

“We should offer them an olive branch first,” Capable said, clarifying when she saw the confusion, “Mercy. We’re strong enough to give them mercy, aid. We’re strong enough to make this gamble.”

“And what if it doesn’t pay off?” Dag challenged. “What if that opens us to attack?”

“It also opens us to the opportunity of everyone benefitting.” Capable insisted, “And I don’t think this is much of a gamble, look at them.”

She waved down at the convoy and even from here, the wariness of their movements were unmistakeable. Furiosa looked through the spyglass once more, and yes, Volt did look full of bravado, but uncertain too.

Furiosa thumbed the microphone button. _"We can talk,"_ she said into it, and Volt looked relieved, maybe. She wondered if his position wasn't fully established yet, and if he'd flouted his hoped-for ability to establish trade with the Citadel as a way to solidify his own leadership. That could work in their favour; they weren't likely to double-cross if their own leadership hinged on continued access to water. 

If they weren’t lying, that was.

 _"You and one more person can come up for negotiations,"_ she told him. _"And bring a barrel of guzz."_ she let her eyes drift over the barrels.

Volt nodded and shouted instructions to his men, and they moved over to the barrel truck.

 _"Left hand row, the third one,"_ Furiosa instructed. There was no visible reaction to that, no slumping shoulders or hasty talking, but she'd reserve judgement until she'd talked to Volt and had the garage boys test the guzzoline.

"Send a runner to Oti. If the guzz is on the up and up, he can bring Volt to the mess hall."

One of the older warpups that served as runner nodded.

"I'll go with," Janey said, shouldering her rifle. Furiosa nodded, relieved. Volt had been popular, a well-respected warboy and an esteemed artist at the warboys' decorative skin carving. It was probably good to have somebody there whom he couldn't take in based on his prior role in the Citadel.

* * *

Feng watched them go and tried to remind herself that she didn’t _want_ a seat at this table. Didn’t _want_ to negotiate with warboys. It just galled to be out of the loop, to have to trust these young girls, to do it right. To not fuck everybody over in their weakness and eagerness to please. To her mind they remained Johanna’s girls, and Johanna had never quite had the ruthlessness Feng felt was needed in the wasteland.

“Sometimes it’s hard to not have an itchy trigger finger, y’know what I mean?” Gilly walked over to her, brown hands tight on her gun, “Yours have their orders?”

Feng nodded, “The Soundless are on standby for support and extraction if things go south.”

“Would be a pity if it did. Probably best I’m not at the table myself.” The Vuvalini hummed, “I know how to survive and have all the habits for it. Not sure that I have those for peace.”

“Do you think fighting ever ends?” Feng snapped.

“That’s a good question, ain’t it?” Gilly shot back, “Bet Joe thought war never ended and acted like it, named stuff after it and everything.”

“What does Joe’s ways ever—”

“Getting strength, remaining ruthless, feeding war.” Gilly stated, “You are what you feed.”

“That doesn’t mean those _girls_ have any clue how to negotiate!”

“And we do? You’re as old as I, you remember having ‘nuclear deterrents’ and how little that worked. You’ve known too what it is to have power held over you and your lady parts and your heritage and how that only caused festering. Wanting beat on those stronger for their foot on our necks. It’s no different if you’ve become the one pressing the foot.”

“So we’re going to let those girls mess up? Trying to find a different way?”

“You want to be at the forefront forever? This needs to be their world more than it needs to be ours. If their new ways don’t work, we’ll still be at their backs, eh?”

“Sometimes you only have one chance to get it right, one life to gamble.” Feng argued.

“...‘we are all visitors to this time, this place’,” she replied after a pause, “ ‘We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love... and then we return home.’ ”

“Sounds like something Johanna might say,” Feng said, not sure if she was annoyed about it or not.

Gilly shrugged, “That’s what bathii always said.”

“Bathii?”

“Ah. ‘ _Grandmother_.’ Sorry. Had forgotten her words for a long while, the world being what it is.”

Feng eyed her, “Oh?”

“She didn’t ‘return home’ peacefully.”

“Hmm.” Feng hummed doubtfully, “And you of a sudden remember something of peace and how to behave in it, is that right?”

“It’s hard to remember, ever since the world fell, what it was like back then,” Gilly finally said, gripping at her rifle, “I mean we remember it as a time of plenty but. These girls— women. Well… _Tribunes_. They said they read—“ Gilly broke off, eyes distant.

“What.” Feng felt irritated and impatient.

“Even then, with so much wealth back then,” Gilly finished. “They fought for more. Kept fighting until the world broke under the fighting.”

And, well, Feng remembered knowing how her mother was struggling to earn more for them, to provide for them both and was rarely at home. How the families in the neighborhood compared sons and daughters and the grades they received and the schools they’ve gotten into, compared houses, cars, vacations. How she felt poor for never having gone to spring break in Hawaii, how they only drove a Lexus and not a Benz, how her mother despaired at their wardrobe, how they always felt behind. She’d always felt somewhat bitter and driven and angry for it.

And to have one one hundredth of what she’d had then would seem beyond luxurious now.

“The Tribunes said that they read that people from Before still never felt like they have enough, and when I tried to guide them better, to argue against them I realized that I couldn’t find—” Gilly stumbled against her own words but pushed on, “Even the Green Place, maybe for Furiosa it felt decadent, but she was young. She never saw how much we worried. And trying to remember even further back...”

“You could only remember your grandmother’s words?” Feng guessed, staring sightlessly into the middle distance. Could she even remember any of her own grandmother’s words? Or even any of her mother’s? None of their advice seemed applicable to the present but—

“Her life was, was _hard_ . Being who she was there was, what they did to her husband and children, wouldn’t be so much different than we have here now in this trashheap of a world. But she still said things like that. Like the words of these Tribunes. Words of forgiveness and peace.” Gilly shook her head, “She’d said that was the only way she clawed out of her situation as much as she did. Hoping for it, _learning_ how to hope for it again, even around the distrust and the wariness.”

“Learning how to hope.” Feng murmured, rubbing her fingers together, absently chasing the feeling of a warm cup of tea.

* * *

“But we shouldn’t treat them with suspicion,” Capable argued to Furiosa as they walked down to the mess hall, “It’ll just give them grounds to treat us with suspicion as well.”

"It’s not that,” Furiosa tried to explain, looking at both her and Toast carefully, “he won't expect any charity, he'll have come with something worthwhile to trade." Toast joined them with word that the guzz was good and Volt and his second were waiting.

“We have more than enough water—”

“And they have more than enough guzzoline, which we still need," Furiosa said with emphasis. "For the patrols, the pumps, and we need some backup guzzoline to help with the Mill Rat’s pumps if there are too many injuries or a harvest comes in and we need more hands. If we give him more than he hoped for, we're weakening our position down the line. Any trader will come to us with raised prices, figuring we've got plenty if we're willing to give away our water and goods."

Capable frowned at her, but Toast was nodding.

"We'll haggle a bit and give them about what they expect - less than they hoped for, more than they feared for. And most important, the promise of future trade."

"That will mean more for Gastown than a few extra barrels water now," Toast agreed.

“And because they’ll have to haggle for it, they’ll trust it more.” Furiosa added, “Easier to trust that the things that you fought over, and easier to treaty with others if you’re allowed to have self-respect.”

When they arrived in the mess Furiosa was entirely unsurprised to find Ace there. Volt and one of the ranking Gastown boys were sitting at a table with Oti and Ace. Janey was also there, observing quietly from a table away, her rifle within easy reach. There were three more of Ace's crew standing guard.

Ace greeted Furiosa with a hint of ' _yes, fine, I should still be resting_ ' in his glance, and she hid her amusement, knowing no comment from her was required. He looked like the walk from her quarters had already made her point for her.

Volt introduced Caltex, who greeted them respectfully, and Furiosa introduced Tribunes Toast and Capable. Volt looked at them with interest, maybe some confusion, but either Oti or Ace had clearly brought him up to speed about the new situation in the Citadel because they weren’t dismissed. Good.

Furiosa and the Tribunes sat down.

A few minutes later, after finding out just how difficult the situation in Gastown had become, Capable instructed Mazda, one of the guards, to arrange for somebody to bring water down to the waiting convoy.

"Let them drink, and fill their personal canteens," she instructed, and Furiosa was pleased to see that Mazda didn't hesitate or look first at Ace or Oti, just nodded and went to arrange it.

"That's the only water you'll get for free," Toast told Volt, and started the negotiations.

* * *

"Weren't that just one surprise after'nother," Ace summarised as Furiosa accompanied him to her quarters. He looked grey and tired; he'd definitely been on his feet too long, she thought. The walk all the way to the garage tower and back had been a bit much. Tired as he clearly was, he also looked pleased. "Volt in charge of Gastown! Looks like he came though, the boys said the guzz tests right good."

Furiosa slowed down her walk, so he didn't have to pause for air.

"And the Tribunes dealt well," he said thoughtfully.

"They did, didn't they?" Furiosa said, pleased to hear him agree with her thoughts. They'd been strict but fair, obviously having taken her warning about being taken seriously to heart. In addition to the main guzz-for-water trade they'd added in a favourable deal about supplying seeds for some of the more easily indoor-grown produce - spinach and mustard greens mostly - so Gastown could try growing them for itself. Citadel greenthumbs would be lent who would teach their trade and help set up greenhomes for Gastown, who would lend men and vehicles for scouting runs and patrols for the same duration.

Setting up Gastown for self-sufficency was more efficient than how Joe had been running trades, keeping everything close so everybody would be dependant on him. Better to have strong allies that could act on both of their interests than welding a town to them they that they’d have to throw away resources to take care of. Furiosa had always thought that transporting fresh leafy greens across the wastes - where much of the cargo inevitably arrived wilted or ruined - made little sense.

The whole encounter had taken a few hours, from waiting for the guzz to be tested to the negotiations themselves, to the exchange of guzz for water barrels. It had been more tense than Furiosa had anticipated at first, the situation new and still a little uneasy, neither side completely comfortable with the other yet. But she hoped that the way the Tribunes had acted had made clear that the Citadel was a new place and wanted this connection, this alliance with Gastown instead of how the Citadel had been held by Joe above the other two towns, and that it would go a way toward establishing a new kind of stability in the region.

The info Volt had been able to give about Bullet Farm, limited though it was, also helped. She'd have to talk with the others about if it was wise to send a talker or if it would be better to wait until they came to petition the Citadel for water.

"You stayin' for a rest too?" Ace asked as she helped him sink down onto the bed.

"I can't, I think I need to…" she gestured vaguely. Make sure everybody was stood down. Talk to the council about what had been negotiated with Gastown. Oversee… organise… things.

"Looked to me like the Tribunes had things in hand," he murmured, not letting go of her hand. "And like you could do with a little downtime too."

Furiosa stared down at him for the space of a few breaths, trying to think of that thing she needed to be doing that nobody else could do, or would think to do. But Ace was right, Capable and Toast had things in hand, the Vuvalini there for backup and Max too, somewhere, if there was a situation. Oti and Kompass would handle whatever came up on their side.

The Tribunes had acted well in this sudden development, what could have been a crisis or easily turned into one instead one that looked tentatively favorable. And they had been managing the Council well, navigating all the circumstances, and making sure the Citadel’s working flowed smoothly. The Tribunes had been there ever since she’d been unable to when she’d initially came back, stepped in and stepped up to lead.

And she _was_ tired. The adrenaline of first seeing the convoy, of thinking they were coming under attack all over again, had long since worn off and the idea of sinking down here next to Ace and just rest for a while was…. Was very attractive.

"Just a short while," she told him. "To make sure you stay put."

He hummed agreeably and made space for her to curl up next to him, as if it was okay to be tired, okay to rest before exhaustion made her collapse. As if it was her right and her reward.

“And I’ll make sure you get up again when we’re needed,” he promised. There was something new about his smile as he watched her, but she couldn't quite define what.

When she woke up it was dark. She heard Ace's soft snore, felt Austeyr's bodyheat behind her. She could hear Rachet's breathing on Ace's other side.

"'Ev’rything's fine, Boss," Kompass breathed sleepily

“Max?”

Kompass yawned, “Crashing in Ace’s room. Said to call on him if we needed him."

Furiosa hummed in acknowledgement, a little disappointed - she'd really hoped he could be there, now. Still, letting them know he was nearby, even _where_ he was - that was… well, it was something.

She felt Kompass shift closer.

"Boss?"

"Mm?"

"Volt was talkin' about how he'd heard rumours roundabouts of the 'Furies,'" Kompass said quietly, sounding a little uncertain. "Said he shoulda realised that was us."

"Furies," Furiosa repeated, smiling sleepily. "That's how they're calling you all now?”

“Not all the war boys I think just…” he shifted a bit, “Just us. Your crew.”

She let the name roll about in her mind and it felt like lying back on morning-warmed stone, “I like it."

"Yeah? You're… you don't mind?" It took her a moment to realise that it was still ingrained in them that they were the Immortan's, and that calling themselves anybody else's would have been punished.

"Mm. Easier than saying 'my crew' when you're not all—" she yawned, "—on my rig crew anymore."

"That's true," he said, sounding like he was smiling.

"Furies," she sighed fondly, already drifting off to sleep again.


	49. Webolette

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Webolette: A piece of webbing with eyes sewn into the ends which can be used in place of a cordelette.
> 
> _“You want to be part of the scouting party,” Capable guessed, trimming a bit at a broken nail._
> 
> _“That obvious?”_
> 
> _Capable looked up and met Toast’s eyes. “Isn’t that what you’ve been training for?”_

The next day a very excited messenger came to say that the signal tower in Bullet Farm had suddenly begun to flash; it had been completely silent all this time. The message, a cautious first inquiry about possible trade, made it clear that Volt had spread the word about his dealings with Citadel.

It meant, Capable thought - hoped - that things were slowly heading toward a new balance. None of them had even thought to send messages to the other strongholds; they'd all been so busy establishing the new order of the Citadel there hadn't been much time or energy for worry on what lay beyond.

She hummed as she worked sunflower seed oil into Toast’s hands while speaking this outloud; they were on a bench in the baths and Capable took the opportunity to pamper her a little. Her sister had sought more lessons than just in self-defense from the Vuvalini, wanting to learn guns, both how to learn them and how to shoot. She’d sought lessons in engine-work from the repair boys and lessons in inventory and stocks from Stuffs. The work had left new calluses and muscles on the woman who sought to Know as much as she could and Capable felt like they’d become less known to each other in the process, as Capable’s time was eaten up by her time being whisked around the Citadel mediating disputes before they could fester and getting people aid and supplies and information and attention before disputes could even occur. What time she could snatch she’d poured into learning what she could to better help the infirmary.

Never again did she want to only be able to say someone’s name as they lay dying.

(“ _Furiosa_.”)

The blood never frightened her like it did the others, neither did pain, and she found herself suited to the work even as Feng looked at her and found her wanting.

(“Why isn’t that other one here, the tall one? Why must I waste my time with this?” Feng stared at her and Capable stared back, mulishly. One of them needed to learn how to heal and Dag didn’t have the temperament, it was all the blond could do not to lash out during bad moments and Dag stared at the Soundless like they were everything she was afraid of being.

But she knew she couldn’t say any of this to Feng’s face.

“You can’t look at your patients as _people_ , you have to detach yourself,” the older woman continued, despite working on the arm of a war boy caught in a repair accident.

“I focus more if I care.” Capable replied, and exchanged glances with Throttle. He quirked his mouth at her wryly but his eyes screamed, _don’t leave me alone with her._

“You’ll drive yourself insane that way girl.”

 _I’ll be stronger than you,_ Capable thought as she turned back to look at Feng steadily. The old woman shifted her gaze away first.)

There was so much to learn about the body that she was glad for the help she got from Janey and Ace to keep an eye on things with the warboys, Dag’s eye on the terraces, and Cheedo flitting about letting her know what might need her mediation the most. And Toast—

“We should send out scouts once we’re getting steady supplies from Gastown,” Toast said, watching as Capable massaged her small calloused hand. “I want to look into the trading town Max mentioned, now that the Soundless are becoming integrated there’s a chance of trades falling off because nomads can’t levy our factions against each other and drive up cost.”

“You want to be part of the scouting party,” Capable guessed, trimming a bit at a broken nail.

“That obvious?”

Capable looked up and met Toast’s eyes. “Isn’t that what you’ve been training for?”

“Not trained enough yet,” Toast seemed frustrated, her arm tensing as if recalling her latest spar.

But Capable remember long tea-filled afternoons where they sat around recalling what they could of outside. Cheedo couldn’t supply many memories of her own as her mother presented her to the lift even as she’d been nursing, but her mother used her as a ticket into the Citadel and was able to raise her long enough for Cheedo to remember her stories of the Wasteland. Of them all, Toast remembered the most, having come from a tribe of those same nomad traders. She remembered the most how the trades happened, things to say and do.

(Up until Toast herself became traded. Which is why Capable cannot say to her anything like, ‘you know trading,’ because she is not willing to hurt Toast with the implication.)

“Soon though,” Capable said with pride and confidence. Toast seemed to lift her chin at Capable’s surety, and she smiled at being able to give her sister that. She stood up and got behind Toast, “Here, let me treat your face as well.”

Toast laid back on the bench so that Capable could reach easier, solar-steamed towels already at hand, and huffed, “It’s nice to be able to do this for _ourselves_.”

Unspoken was that this was something Joe had demanded of them, to treat their skin and pretty themselves for him, and distasteful for all that it was nice. Now that Joe was gone, however… “You’ll help me with mine after?”

“Of course, you’ve helped with mine,” Toast murmured, eyes closed, “Shine ourselves up for the party and all.”

The calm of the room was broken by Cheedo and Dag crashing into it, laughing, both of them streaked with dirt.

“All’s well?” Capable asked Cheedo, who broke off and smiled back.

“Peaceful, everyone’s buzzing about the party.” There was a small frown of thought, “I’m watching the dissenters who are doubting the women hosting, saying it’s frivolous, and alerted Kompass so he could get more eyes on it. Most are just curious though. Greenthumbs say they might attend the next one if this one goes smooth.”

Capable nodded and watched as Cheedo returned to teasing Dag about the knots she’s getting in her hair, dragging her over to the stools and basin where they could rinse up before using the communal solar-heated tub in the corner.

“I almost want to chop the whole thing off,” Dag snarled as both she and Cheedo worked at it valiantly.

“Be less easy to grab,” Toast opinioned.

Cheedo looked over at her, after a pause.

“Was that why you cut it off?”

“Partially,” Toast admitted. “...And also to piss off Joe.”

“You’d think Angharad would’ve done that then.” Dag laughed, but they all looked toward Capable as they tended to do when thinking of Angharad, Capable having known her best. And Angharad really _did_ hate Joe that much but.

“Angharad,” she sighed and paused her work, looking off into the middle distance, “she knew, Furiosa too, that there was a chance it’d come down to fighting. That’s why they’d settled on ‘no _unnecessary_ killing’.”

“And what did that have to do with her hair?” Dag demanded.

“...she _knew_ ,” Cheedo breathed after a quiet moment, horror in her tone, putting it together quickly. “She knew she needed it against Joe, like, like a disguise. To be _Splendid,"_ she made a face, "when it was needed. A defense. She was _ready to_ —!”

“She always threw her body in front of us to defend us. Taking as much of Joe’s attention as she could, even though we all tried to get him to ignore her too.” Toast added quietly.

They let that thought settle for a long moment.

Dag fingered the ends of her hair, watching Capable, “Is that why you’re keeping yours long?”

“It’s easy to spot. A good distraction,” Capable said steadily. Then cracked a grin, “And I like it.”

When Dag looked at Cheedo, Cheedo shrugged, “Mine don’t really tangle, and the dark makes it easy to blend in.”

Toast sat up and folded her arms on her knees, “But don’t do it for our reasons if they don’t sit well.”

 _What would suit you?_ Her dark gaze prodded.

“I…maybe,” Dag folded her fingers against each other, rubbing at her dark tattoos. “Woven long like lives, bordered by wastes.”

“What?” Cheedo asked with forehead furrowed .

Dag looked over at her, “I remember… seeing some of the people in our tribe, the ones who had paired off, wear their hair so instead of mohawked. Shaved sides, and the rest in a tight braid.” She glanced at Cheedo. "I want it like that."

Capable liked the way even the idea of it sat on her, and Toast looked from Dag to Cheedo with a tiny grin.

“I can do the sides,” Toast offered, reaching for the razor. Capable brought over the oils and a hot wet towel over to help prep the hair.

“Would you let me weave?” Cheedo asked quietly, placing her hand over Dag’s hand tattoos.

“...yes.” Dag replied, staring back as if there was no other reply.

Capable and Toast exchanged a quick glance, Toast hiding a grin in a cough and Capable thinking wryly of a blue gaze and a sweetness she’d chased out from underneath War.

“Witnessed.” She said.

“But that word—”

“Let’s make that for life as much, if not more so, as for death.” Capable insisted. “Angharad would have—”

They all looked at each other.

“Witnessed.” Toast agreed, and they all broke at that, laughing from... not joy exactly, or sadness, or amusement, but maybe all three. Maybe none of those but instead an excess of feeling.

(It felt like Angharad was there, watching too.

Or that they finally filled enough of her space with themselves... and maybe this was grief for it being so.)

* * *

Things were changing, in a good way, Treb thought, and this here with this drumming that the breeders were sharing was one of them. He thought about being asked to listen for the first time on the other side of their door and their wary faces when they first found him.

"Let me ask first, okay?" Treb told Clef and Tim as they walked up to the mess hall, passing by some Distro boys hauling in some grub. Looked to be mealworm biscuits, even. "The invitation was for me, I don't want them to feel like we're invading." It was the day after their latest Tenday so everyone felt the momentum of sharing names, sharing stories. But Volt’s arrival and the memory of that alert wariness and fear made Treb more aware of how he didn’t want to spread that wariness. Didn’t want to trespass like he’d feared trespass from those vehicles that briefly ruined the peace of that day.

"But we're bringing instruments!" Timpani said, hefting a small set of double drums. Clef was carrying a sort of tiny guitar-like thing he'd patched up until it made a tolerable sound. Treb had a crate full of bells and triangles and other small soundmakers. He'd also brought some of their precious spare strings for that board instrument he'd heard.

"It's just… I dunno if they'll take that as 'here, we can do better'. Things are difficult, okay? Just hang back and let me figure out how welcome we are."

There wasn't any music yet, just voices and noise. To his surprise, Kompass was already in the mess, shoving at tables and benches together with some of the breeders. The Drummer Boys set down their things on a ledge and jumped in to help.

Treb was busy making a wide circle space when he noticed a breeder looking at him. She was beautiful, with high cheekbones and a mass of dark curls bound back, her skin only a little lighter than his,but the most striking were the swirls of grey-white paint on her arms and legs. The patterns was different, but she looked like she'd had the same idea as he when doing her paint, curlicues like music notes and curves that recalled instruments. He tried not to stare, not wanting to make her uneasy, but he was trying to be certain the markings _were_ music notes and not referencing something else. He hadn't forgotten that even his being outside of their barred door had made some of the breeders look nervous.

Instead he glanced over at the guys, checking to make sure they were still keeping themselves in check.

Treb, Tim and the others in the band had never been awarded a visit to the breeder quarters. Drummers hadn't been deemed worthy of it, and he'd always been envious when he'd heard warboys talk about it. Now that the Tribunes were saying it hadn't been… hadn't been willing, not really, hadn't been _right_ , he wasn't sad about it anymore.

Not staring was much harder once he realised she was the one with the string-board instrument.

"Treb!" one of the old women from the canyon greeted him, and he startled to attention. Gilly, he remembered. "Welcome."

"Thank you. Do you think— I brought the other drummers. Do you think that's okay?"

"I'm sure it is, if they know how to behave," she told him.

Treb looked around to check on them again. "We brought some things. Instruments and spare strings and… could you ask if they would like those?" He felt very aware of the memory of interrupting their party, bringing the music to a halt, and being asked to be on the other side of that door. If they retreated again, after all this preparation, he wasn't sure they'd ever come back out again or what he was gonna break on dealing with that.

Gilly reached up and patted him on the shoulder. "I'm sure it'll be fine, but I will ask, if you like."

The breeders began forming a large circle, and Treb idly wondered how they knew when to do that; he hadn't seen or heard any signal, and even the young kids joined. Some of the breeders ushered in the girls in the black robes of the Soundless too. They all held hands, and he met Clef's eyes, they and the warboys that were present watching, unsure if this was something they should join. There didn’t seem to be any sign of what came next, what they were all waiting for. When the singing started, Treb was relieved he hadn't tried.

The song was in words he didn't understand. He'd only ever heard Warboy songs, simple chanting-like things, usually with rude words, so the many voices falling into a harmony was— new, and made a shiver go down his spine, his breath coming a little short. It was obviously a familiar song for most of them, the older breeders leading the different voices, and at one point some of them sang counter-words, as if there were questions and answers.

The song rose, louder and higher, reverberating against the stone, until it ended in a single, great footstomp, and Treb felt revved up, like his whole body was vibrating, his heart beating double time. Tim, next to him, looked just as wide-eyed, as did the other warboys that had arrived.

It felt like something hanging in the air that couldn't, shouldn't be disturbed, and Treb watched, his breath shallow as if not to disrupt anything. Then suddenly the breeder with the big belly who had talked to him before, told him to listen outside, made a gesture as if swiping away the tension, and there was an ululating cry, and suddenly there were handclaps and footstomps and the circle broke open, the tension fading from the room. 

Suddenly it was easy to find the rhythm and support it on the small drums they'd brought. Treb took a set of bells from the crate and then pushed the crate where people could see it easily, hoping others might take soundmakers if they wanted them. He spotted the young pup - Damar? - with his bell, and when other kids saw the crate, they came over for their own soundmakers. It was briefly a loud cacophony, and Treb cringed, wondering if that had been his most terrible idea to date. But the head breeder, Marienny, somebody said her name was, just laughed at the enthusiastic pups, starting to organise them together with the pretty breeder with the string board.

There was a burst of loud random sounds and then Marienny started up a strong base beat on the big drum. Some of the pups glanced around, and then naturally followed her, some precisely, some double or triple timed chimes to the beat. There were a couple that just laughed and shook out some random sounds, but eventually there was some sort of pattern going on.

The woman with the string board settled on the ledge not far from him and began to play a melody, and Treb could pay attention to nothing else, transfixed by her face as she concentrated on the music. Both her hands worked at the melody, producing something which had familiar rhythms, only he felt the sound like a half-forgotten language. If a guitar was a single voice, her instrument was a conversation within itself, like the song they’d opened with but in instrument form.

There was a couple musical phrases however that he found clever but, almost stilted. Treb didn’t know how to explain it in a different way, but it was like watching Toolbox move on his spring leg, a great adaptation but. But a workaround for a hurt.

He stared harder at her hands, and at the instrument, and he thought, _Was that a string missing?_

Treb distractedly fingered the replacement strings in his belt pouch. Maybe he could… he pulled it out and hesitated, but when she paused her playing to adjust something about her instrument he got up and walked into her space. Cleared his throat, stalling and not knowing what to say but the sound made her look up.

She raised an eyebrow and he looked away and scratched at his neck a bit. Held out the strings to her and shrugged.

And she started...

She started laughing, and took them from him, and her laughter sounded sweet, like the little bells.

Before the uncertainty and upset could even fully crawl across his face she started fixing the missing string and said towards it, head bent, “Thank you.”

He went really still, listening for her as the party whirled around them.

“It’d been missing a string for a long time,” she glanced up again, “Been like that since I got it.”

"Glad I could help." He hesitated. Names were important. "I'm Treb. What's your name?"

“Would you even remember it if I told you?” She gave him a look he didn't understand, narrow-eyed and mouth tight.

"How could I forget? I've never heard anybody play this shine."

"That so?" She tilted her head as she examined him, and some of her hostility seemed to fade. "I've never seen you in the breeders quarters," she said finally, her tone inviting him to talk.

"I, uh, never—" he gestured aimlessly. It had always been an embarrassment not to be considered worthy of visits, and he was uncertainly feeling his idea around the idea that it might be a good thing now. "Was one of Doof's drummers."

"Ah."

“I could make a song of it,” Treb said after a moment of silence. “Your name. Make sure everyone remembers it too.”

“And what would you sing about?”

Treb opened his mouth, and then thought a bit. He shook his head, “I know the shape of the music, but I don’t know the words. Maybe. Would you like to…?”

“Fill in the words?” A smile threatened at the corners of the mouth, “That I can certainly do. Name’s Naaka.”

“Naaka,” Treb repeated. _Sounds like a melody,_ he thought.

* * *

Rett could hear the drumming and music three hallways away. It was strange to just hear it like this, music had always been either the Doof Warrior riding away from the Citadel while Rett stayed behind, or exclusively for the Immortan. He'd never heard music played and shared just anywhere, for anyone to listen to.

The mess was all awhirl with breeders and kids and boys from Doof’s crew, some milkers poking their heads in and whispering to each other, and some warboys too. He was glad to spot a couple of Furiosa's crew; most her repair boys chatting with Toolbox and the general repair crews but Kompass was sitting to the side and the man had close workings with those on the Council.

Rett greeted Kompass with a nod, and settled down next to him on a bench. “Hey, ace. Whatcha staring at that’s made you all amused-lookin’?”

“Check those two out.”

“Eh?”

“Over there, by the pups with all the jangling. One of Doof’s drummers with a breeder.”

It took him a moment to find what Kompass was talking about, but only a moment. The two were the only ones not in motion, seeming to be nearly frozen around one another and caught up in looking at each other. “Those two look to be trading paint tonight.”

“Or sometime soon.” Kompass grinned, then went a little solemn, “How's life going for you? Our repair bays holding up okay? I know supplies are...”

“...yeah.” Rett nodded, “Toolbox is still in a bit of a scramble about the aqua cola pipes, and our Repair crew’s had to wrangle rigs away from other crews, but it’s not like those crews haven’t traitored us by throwing in with Joe or Noxious. Me an’ WD called dibs on the best for our Imperator ages ago and no one’s been brake enough to challenge.”

"Getting started on a new rig?"

"Nothing as shine as the old one, we don't have the frame for it. Ain't got more than a coupl'a dodgy old vans to cobble together. Though I guess now we got fuel, the Imperator could send a crew to the canyon, see if there's more we can salvage."

"I'm betting once the new rig is good to go, she'll want you along on missions, useful having a blackthumb who really knows the rig." Kompass said idly, and Rett nearly choked on his own tongue. “‘Ey, Repair crews’ve sorted themselves out under Ace and Janey yet?” Kompass continued, as if he hadn't just upended Rett's whole expectation.

Rett hummed weakly. He scrambled to stick with the conversation instead of begging for more information. Whatever was decided about Rett's position, it would be up to the Imperator anyway and it wasn't like this information motivated him any more than he already was to build her the best rig he possibly could. He could act natural about this, he could.

“ _Janey_?” Rett had seen the fighting to get on the new Imperator Ace’s repair team but... “That old breeder the Boss brought back?”

“My lizard’s on her getting her belt promotion sooner rather than later.”

"More like _accepting_ her belt promotion,” Razor broke in grumpily, coming over to sit down next to Rett. "I reckon she could have it today if she asked for it." He nodded a hello at Kompass, and bumped shoulders companionably with Rett. They’d both fought for, and won, their surgeries from the Mechanic around the same time but Razor was a few years older, had always been taller and broader, and been snatched up quickly to be a driver for Imperator Tine; it’d taken a bit longer for Rett to be taken in with Furiosa’s repair crew.

"So why hasn't she?"

"Who knows? She ain't from the Citadel. Got weird ideas. Gave aqua cola to a warboy gone feral, tried to bring him back. We've been trying to get her to see things right, but..."

“Huh.” Rett scratched at his nose, thinking of the uproar in the bays when Janey came back from that salvage trip. “Explains some things, it does.”

“Don’t suppose you could put in a word to her?” Razor looked all hopeful at Kompass, who shrugged.

“Last I know, both Ace and Furiosa’d talked to her some,” Kompass squinted a little, “You call yourselves her crew, right? Pretty insistent on her in specific, are you? All of you?”

“All of us.” Razor nodded, “Look, there’s only two official Imperators right? Not enough for all who can fight or repair or do runs, and we all did a run with her, Janey that is. If we did a run with her we should get to be her crew."

"Stands to reason," Rett agreed. _Doing the job without getting the title wasn't fair._

"Right chrome the way she treated the war boys we found, too," Razor said.

“Issat so?”

He nodded, “A bit strange sometimes, but her orders are workable, and everything seems to fall out okay. If we were to crew at all, it would be with her wouldn’t it?” Razor’s jaw was hard as he continued, “And we would be stuck all half-out a window if we were her crew and she weren’t Imperator.”

“Can’t go forward, can’t go back,” Kompass agreed, humming. “Didn’t realize it got to that point. Most or all are pretty upset, are they?”

“Would reckon so. We know she's a stranger and all, but we thought she'd understand by now. Dunno why the Tribunes haven't gone ahead and promoted her. You’d think they’d be quicker to do that than picking a war boy.”

“It’s Ace though,” but Kompass nodded seeing their point, “I’ll ask a Tribune for their thoughts, maybe they could talk to Janey or at least start up the belt craft process so it’ll go smooth once she agrees.”

Just then the music ended, and in a moment of silence as the dancers came to a halt, laughing and pausing for water, Rett noticed that Furiosa and Ace had come in. Ace still looked pale, a bandage around his throat, but he was walking upright, chatting to Furiosa.

 _He must be healing okay,_ Rett thought. That was good. His new crew must be relieved too, because to have been chosen and then immediately lose their Imperator would have been rust. It was probably as much a show of strength and reassurance that Ace appeared today, as for the festivity itself.

“Here, let me check in on Ace first, see if he'll talk to her some more before we havta go over her head and bring in the Tribunes," Kompass said.

Razor nodded, clearly relieved. And Rett was glad, because surely Ace would understand the issue, and be able to explain it to Janey. He'd been a warboy himself. It was pretty awful not knowing if you had a place to earn your keep and be useful.

* * *

“Wait, Janey really don’t know that they’re waitin’ on her?”

Ace stared at Kompass as his former second lead him across the room to where the other war boy last caught a glimpse of the older woman. The room had filled up enough that it was hard to see across the room less you were standing and even then it was hard to find who you were looking for through all the bodies and heads. Didn’t help that the Vuvalini tended towards gear similar in color to the Citizens, and no few of them had come to check out the shindig and ended up staying. He even caught sight of Corpus at one point being nestled carefully on a ledge and having conversations with those too tired or wary of dancing.

"I think she knows, what with the belts and all, but not what it means," Kompass replied.

“Thought she’d realize it weren’t a passing thing and then step up to the role,” Ace said, trying to remember that time she’d spoken of it to him.

“I remember you talkin’ about it, like she needed to get used to the idea. Is it because it’s never been done that it hasn’t even occurred to her? An outsider as an Imperator, that is.”

“Who’d expected a _half-life_ to be made Imperator,” Ace retorted. “And yet here I am with this hanger weighing down my pants.”

“Yeah, careful they don’t fall down.” Kompass grinned and dodged Ace’s answering swat. “Hey Janey!”

The Vuvalini looked up at the call, swinging her long silver braids over her shoulder, and Ace had to bite off his reply to Kompass as he waved back and sat down next to her. He tried to hide the fact that he was easing down into the seat, making sure he was turned toward her, still a little sore from the surgery. He knew people were watching him carefully. But she seemed to catch it in his movement and looked a little concerned, turning toward him so he didn't need to strain his neck sideways to talk.

Kompass waited until he was settled and then nodded, satisfied, and wandered off to see if Furiosa needed anything.

“What brings y’over here, Ace?”

“Heard some news from some of yours.” Ace watched her carefully for her expression.

“Some of mine?” Janey replied, “What do you mean.”

“The war boys that had been under your command.” Ace looked at her, “You don’t consider them your men? Was there a problem on the run?”

“Not with the crew, no,” she frowned, “Why do you think there was a problem?”

“Well, would you like to replace them? Oti and Kompass and I are still working out the last of our crews and we can switch people around if you feel some would more suit on _your_ crew.”

“My… crew?” Her face did something he couldn't quite read. “That makes it sound so permanent.”

“You don’t want it to be.” Ace stated and couldn’t help a note of disappointment creeping in.

“The Vuvalini, we’ve never done it like that.”

“Huh?”

“It’d be teams— _crews_ ,” she said as if correcting herself learning new slang, “formed on the fly, tailored to whatever needed doing.”

“Doesn’t that take time though?” Ace’s forehead furrowed.

“Saves time and energy in the end,” she shot back, “When there is no wasted energy and no hard feelings for anyone being given more than they could manage.”

“But if you can’t manage then why would you be on a crew?”

She opened her mouth, and closed it again, peering at him, “Has it ever occurred that some might manage better if they didn’t get picked for a task so often, or at certain times? We didn't have many people, and those we had needed to last, not get worn down to the bone."

Ace stared at her blankly. “But that means they can’t manage anyway.”

"You give engines time to cool down, don't you? Pick the right sorta cars for the right jobs?" She shook her head, “Nevermind, probably a debate for another day. No, there's nothing wrong with the crew I took out salvaging. They worked together fine, took direction well enough."

“But you don’t want to keep them.” Ace pointed out.

“I don’t want to ‘keep’ anyone!” She said sharply, “People aren’t _owned_.”

Ace tried to shake his head, and grimaced at the pull on his stitches. "Imperators don't own, they _lead_." He sighed at her apparent refusal to see this. "They think you claimed them, and that they failed in some way for you not to want to keep them. So they've got stuck in this half-role they’re sitting in now, where they're a crew doing a crew's work, but they don't have an Imperator. If you don't want to keep them, we'll need to find some other place for them."

"Wait, they think they failed?"

"It escape you that they're tryin' to get your favour?"

"No, but... "

"Most of them never stood a chance of being picked for a crew, before. They're upset at having blown their one chance for a position.”

“What? They didn't blow— and what does position have to do with anything!” Janey burst out, frustrated, “So much is tied up with position and hierarchy here that—”

“Well how are they going to get a crew’s rations then?” Ace asked, exasperated.

“Rations?”

“Tribunes might have some other ideas and shake things up, but as far as I sees they haven’t yet really touched the systems that Distro and the Greenthumbs have. Everybody gets their standard in the meal hall, and then an Imperator gets Crew Rations, extra protein biscuits mostly, to hand out to their crew, on account of them doin' extra work. If there’s salvage, Stuffs works out the equivalent portion per crewmember and they get a pick from the stores.”

Janey squinched her gaze at him dubiously, “I haven’t heard anything the like.”

Ace stared back at her, “Well how didya expect it to work?” Then he thought about it a bit and supposed the Tribunes had no idea of the details of crew allocation and it’s not like Furiosa had been well enough to participate in meetings for most of the past forty or so days. He wondered darkly if Distro had been keeping back that information from the Tribunes on purpose and if they’d still be requesting the same amount of rations— further, where those rations are, now that there are far fewer crew. He’ll have to look into that.

He sighed. "In any case, they’re being shorted.”

Janey face screwed up in something that might be guilt.

“Is it really so bad to be called Imperator?” Ace pointed out, “It’s not like you haven’t taken up the role in practically all but name.”

She stared at him, and he almost laughed, because apparently she hadn't realised that.

“Leading the crews? Being a go-between for the Tribunes and the War boys? Keepin' an eye on the moods and scuffles? Making sure nothing gets the Tribunes unawares? I know you been doin' that, and those are Imperators’ tasks.”

“Are they now.”

“Leastways they _were_ , under— well. Dunno if the Tribunes want t’change it up, but however you hash it you’ve taken on a leadership role. You’ve got people depending on you now.”

“Really.”

Ace thought that her tone was a weird sort of flat, and uncertain. It was quiet as if she was only speaking to herself.

"If you don't want to do it, do you know of somebody else suitable? These guys would like it to be you, but I reckon they'd work with anybody willing to claim them." Because in the end, no one can really force a person to be a leader; it will fail at some point, sooner or later, and the fallout landing hardest on the men themselves who were supposed to have someone behind them. And Ace felt particularly responsible that the war boys in the Citadel were taken care of, he had the position now to give voice to their concerns.

"I'll think about it," she finally said.

Ace supposed that was the best he could hope for.

* * *

Janey shook her head as Ace got to his feet and went back to mingling, reassuring everybody that he was recovering with his steady presence.

 _You think you’ve learned enough about yourself and the world and then something makes you realize yet again just how little you know,_ she thought wryly. She hadn't even realised the Warboys might have taken her taking them on that mission as a promise and might be genuinely upset at her rejection of the title. Might take it as a rejection of themselves.

Warboys had been raised to give themselves to the Immortan, to the purpose of the Citadel. Being denied what they felt was their sole purpose in life had to be difficult for them.

And further, in their eyes she was denying them extra rations. A working crew had higher caloric needs, but she didn't know how she felt about the idea of being given the extra rations to hand them out. It sounded like another way to give an Imperator power over their crew. Her feelings on the unfairness of it didn't change anything for the crew though, and how they were used to running things and how they thought of her.

She thought she had shaken off her old, long-burning anger at the War Boys' existence and their deeds against the Wasteland. Against the violent presence that could be felt even second hand, many miles outside their territory, because the Vuvalini had avoided any Citadel interaction. How they’d had to fade into the desert more than once to avoid cars with white-painted bodies, especially since the Green Place soured and they’ve had to rove wider and wider for supplies. But perhaps sometimes she needed the reminder that if she wanted this Citadel to be a new Green Place, the warboys mattered, _had_ to matter.

She knew that the warboys were still restless after discovering about the lead poisoning, after losing Joe as the figure to look up to. They were uncertain of their place in the new Citadel, seeking for stability, for safety. They needed leaders now, provide some of the steadiness that had so recently dropped away. No matter what _she_ thought was fair, if they weren't being treated in what _they_ saw as fairness, that could impact not just the warboys she'd taken out on the salvage mission, but all of them.

And they wanted her to lead.

And it wasn't… wasn't a displeasing thought to be able to give these warboys, of lower social status because they weren't all strong, weren't all healthy, weren't all what Joe had thought was _right_ , a way to prove themselves. She remembered looking at them as she walked through the garages, trying to figure out who to bring with her on that run, and thinking she saw potential.

She wondered how Furiosa's crew had looked before they'd become hers. That being part of her crew had made a difference for them was undeniable.

Well. It wasn't like she was planning on taking on _all_ of Furiosa’s habits with her crew, but. But there was a settledness to them, and a carefulness towards women. She suspected Furiosa's crew had adjusted so quickly to the new Citadel because they'd already been more Furiosa's than Joe's, having worked under her leadership more closely than they ever did that man’s.

Janey thought about Ace asking her who else she would make Imperator. About the job as he’d listed it, and who else might be willing or capable of doing the things she was doing.

Gale would be capable, even Gilly, but not willing. Vicks hadn't the temperament to lead. None of the women in the Citadel she knew well were well-trained enough to lead a crew outside the Citadel, if they even had interest. Most of them weren't keen on interacting with Warboys more than necessary. Toast, perhaps, one day. But not yet. She was taking to the self defense class quickly and kept asking for more training in weapons, driving, and riding, but was still a beginner in much of it.

And the thing was, too, Janey didn’t want to stop what she was doing from day to day; much of what Ace termed leadership was she’d mentally categorized as ‘scouting’ and it’d made her feel more aware and more secure to talk to everyone herself and make sure everyone was on the same page. Leading the crew on that run reassured her that everything would be looked at what needed to be looked at, and that everyone would be taken care of.

And she wanted to take care of them. For themselves, of course but also…. also, because even though they now number more than the Vuvalini ever did, they were still too few for the Citadel. Not enough.

They were not enough to fully be safe from the Wasteland but— and here was a secret that the remaining Vuvalini had told each other to keep safe until the girls were ready to hear it (until _Furiosa_ was ready to hear it)— there was always a feeling of ‘never enough’ even in the Green Place. They were constantly concerned for the future, if their stores would stretch, if the seeds would last and how many they can safety risk on each growth cycle when the sandstorms were so unpredictable and the crows so unrelenting.

There was no safety to be had in this world, only improved circumstances.

A shadow fell over her, and she looked up, having been so deep in thought she hadn't seen Max approach. He looked a little wide-eyed, as if there were too many people and too much noise, but for some reason he'd decided to be here anyway.

"Hey."

He hummed a greeting and sat down next to her, and together they watched the dancing for a while. The Music Boys were doing the forefront of the integration, one of them playing on a ukelele and the two others being taught the steps of a dance by a grinning young woman. Janey noticed that some of the warboys standing around were watching carefully, as if they were making mental notes of the lesson but weren't quite ready to venture onto the floor.

They were watching each other too, as if daring one another to join. Even as she watched, one of them caved and approached the group. She was surprised to see it was Kompass, not the first warboy she would have expected to dance. He was being gestured forward by Polaris. Oti followed, saying something about representing Ace’s crew.

Janey watched Furiosa and Ace watch them with a grin, nudging Rachet onto the dancefloor too.

"Thank you," she said to Max. "For— for helping Ace. I know it was… a big thing." She’d spoken with some of the freed people who’d been bloodbags, trying to help out Capable, but there’d been such deep horror at the concept of once again letting themselves be pressured into being bled that she hadn’t the stomach to press to change their minds. She was relieved that Max had stepped up because if Ace had passed, and it’d been due to how she hadn’t been insistent enough, she would have felt responsible.

"Hm. Didn't— want to lose him. Didn't want her to lose him," he said awkwardly, as uncomfortable with praise or thanks as she remembered.

"We appreciate that you're staying for it." Janey had noticed him before the surgery roving with an eye towards the horizon and had spoken to Toast and Cheedo, who’d told her about how Max was looking for a chance to leave. To trade, they’d said he’d told them, but neither of them had put much stock into the excuse.

He huffed a breath, self deprecating. "Been tryin' to leave. Not going so well."

"People have a way of drawing you in, don't they?" she sympathized. "Never thought I'd get so involved here either. My crew, the guys I took on that salvage mission - they're trying to make me their Imperator. They’re all upset, apparently, that I’m not one yet. Worried I've rejected them."

"Have you?"

"Not intentionally, anyway."

"But you don't— don't wanna be Imperator?"

"I don't know. I mean Furiosa is but I’d never thought it’d apply to, well, to _me_."

"Called them your crew," he pointed out. "Just now."

"Did I?"

He grunted an affirmative, and she could see an amused tilt to his mouth.

And that. That perhaps said it all didn’t it, if she was already calling them hers. If she was pulling so hard against something just because of a name, just because of a term she didn’t like, and yet was a role she lived every day with and gladly, wasn’t that foolish? She didn’t like the connotations of the title, but maybe she could make new ones, better ones, like they are making this Citadel a better one.

 _Imperator Janey,_ she thought experimentally and cringed at the strangeness of the sound. Maybe 'Boss' was better. She thought she could deal with that, and shifted her attention away from it because maybe she just needed time.

“And how has _your_ crew been?”

“...mine?”

“All you that’s Fury’s. I see Ace seems to be up and about, and everyone’s healing up well.” She nodded over at where Ace was perched with Furiosa. “But, how are you, ah, settling in with them?” Janey asked delicately, not quite sure where they were all at, emotionally or physically or otherwise.

* * *

"I, ah— um."

Max could feel his face grow hot, his brain helpfully supplying just how settled in he'd been between Furiosa's thighs, a few nights ago. It had been— and just as startling, he'd felt no urge to leave, afterward. Had found a space at the edges of them, comfortably heavy-limbed and sleepy. Vaguely remembered waking from a restless dream to somebody's low-voiced reassurances. It had been… good.

He hadn't gone back to her bed the night after. Or the nights since. Had spent the night elsewhere or perched on the window ledge. None of them had said anything different, even though he'd eaten dinner at their table the other day, even though they interacted normally during the day. By now he wasn't sure how to act or what to say if he went back to them with the darkness hit. And he _wanted_ to.

That was the scariest part. He didn't _want_ to go out into the Wastes. He wanted to stay. He was stuck at middle distance, not ready to leave, unable to return to her bed. 

And while he was heading towards being reassured that he wouldn’t misstep here, he was still not entirely certain. He still didn’t trust himself. Still found himself needing air at times.

“Seems… settled here. This place. Seems calm.” he said uneasily

“Don’t trust it?”

“Calm never lasts long, not if I’m around.”

“Never lasts long anyways, what are you on?”

And Max has to chuckle because that’d echoed Ace’s words from a couple of days ago. “You sound like him. Ace.”

“Well I did think that he has his head on straight,” she paused seeming to think, “Look, before my run out there, to follow up on the salvage you found, you did a good job of making sure I knew what to expect.”

Max shifted his gaze away, “It was…”

“Yeah it _was_ what it was, do you think I haven’t seen its like in the Wastes?” her eyes sharpened at him, “I didn’t think that was because you thought me not strong enough to handle it.”

“Not that but,” Max searched for words, of how to explain this thing that felt so obvious because the knowledge of it suffocates him daily, ”it breaks people. The Wasteland.”

 _I am broken,_ he thought. Small. Suffocated.

“ _Living_ breaks people,” Janey said at him slowly, “Do you not— I got the sense you were trying to ward me, telling me those things of those war boys had to do to survive.”

Max shifted uncomfortably.

“I don’t blame them for surviving. For trying to.” She took a long careful breath. “Did you know one killed himself for it? Soon as he was lucid enough to understand what he'd done."

He searched her gaze for the meaning behind this, not understanding how it related.

Janey stared at him steadily, “Couldn’t live with himself for the doing of it, killing his friend. His family, or something like, to hear tell the crew talk of them. He couldn’t live with being responsible for that.”

There was a large stone in Max’s throat, and he was unable to meet her eyes. The words were too close to true, too close to everything he couldn’t let himself think about. Too close to his past and lit fuses and walking away. He was good at walking away except—

“When I gave him enough food, enough water, to stop him from feeling desperate? He stopped being violent at us.” She turned her face away from him and Max sagged a little in relief, “First thing he chose to do was apparently to brain himself with a rock. Dunno if it was just because of guilt, or because he just wanted to stop thinking. Stop trying.”

Max hummed uneasily, unsure what she wanted from him.

“I think he could’ve found a place in this new Citadel,” Janey cleared her throat, “Find enough of us with regrets and with things that make us sleep uneasy, all made sharp and strange by how the world fell.”

Her words fell in a sudden hush, the space between one song and the next. And then a undulating cry started up and the pace of the music spun out fast, then faster, and Janey straightened.

She looked over her shoulder at the dancers and stood up.

"They're playing my song," she apologized with a wry grin and strode towards the dancing.

Max noticed that the other Vuvalini had appeared, Vicks leading a rhythm in handclaps until the drums followed her. The former breeders looked intrigued. Gale had gone over to Furiosa, who was shaking her head, her face tight, one hand pressed absently to a metal elbow. Gale pressed their foreheads together for a moment and went back to the others.

He couldn’t help lingering on her words, about staying. About trying.

There was a sudden shout and a clap and Max looked up. He saw the crew laughing and trying to mimic the steps and the arm movements, how Furiosa got pulled in while Ace demurred, shaking his head and pointed at his neck.

Ace caught him looking and then arched an eyebrow at him.

 _Well?_ The eyebrow seemed to ask.

It didn't feel mocking, Ace never did. It felt like being shown a way inside, being invited in on a joke.

Max slowly got up and Ace grinned at him and shouted something towards the dancers. It felt like there was an endless number of them now all moving like a great surge of water, and they all turned and waved to him, beckoning. Furiosa looked over too as if from on high, surrounded by Vuvalini and now Tribunes, and made a space beside her.

And Max found himself pushing through the crowd.

As if lifted.

* * *

Furiosa didn’t understand how Max could possibly know this dance better than she did. How _Feng and Giddy_ could know this dance. They were dancing it as well as Vicks and Gale, no hesitation in their movements, and wasn't that a sight?

They were _wiggling their hips_. Furiosa couldn’t. She couldn't help but be distracted, trying to reconcile her memories of her rage at the Soundless with—

With _this_.

They were _shimmying_.

“HaaaaaAAY!” Everyone spun and clapped. The Vuvalini hooting and cheering and completely coordinated.

And yet she kept turning the wrong way and even Max didn’t. She must have done this dance as a child, groups of them lined up by the campfire, but she had never felt further from that young girl than right now. She felt ungainly and out of place, unfit for purpose, good only for War. At the next turn she quietly made her way out of the crowd, fingers worrying at the straps of her arm as she reclaiming her seat next to Ace. Wished she'd worn one of the simple, light arms they'd made for her. The weight of her metal one made everything worse, reminded her of who she'd been, what she'd done with it. She closed her eyes, clenched her teeth against the images of Afterburn's face.

She worn this one out of habit though, still feeling naked without it. Didn't quite know if she could be without it now either, if she would feel any better with it off, her side defenceless, open. She felt removed, uneasy and alone in this crowd, and like it was somehow all over her face and Ace could read it like a signal light.

It was good to see everyone together, celebrating. That everyone was here peacefully and getting to know each other in a context that wasn’t tinged with fear or worry. Good that Max started dancing with them on his own. He glanced over at her from the middle of his own little knot of people, Austeyr crashing into him with a older citizen at his side, some milkers having arrived finally and joining in with faux-stern teasing, Dag dancing with a hand on her belly, beginning to show now. She was gesturing at both her new hair and Max’s unruly tangle, to Max’s increasingly alarmed expression that Rachet was helplessly sniggering at all in a huddle with Kompass’ sister.

It didn't make sense that she felt like crying. There was nothing to feel sad about.

Maybe she should leave.

But after a glance at her Ace still said nothing, only lightly bumped his shoulder against hers, his smile saying, _Stay_ , and she leaned against him gratefully. His arm came around her back, and she sighed, relaxing against him. After a while, the two of them watching a different dance now, she found herself prying open the buckles at her waist after all, and she let her arm slide to the floor.

“Mmm?” Ace hummed in question. It sounded soothing and dusty.

“Unneeded right now,” fell out of her mouth, "Weighs me down."

“Th’ straps?” Ace murmured, clearly willing to help her have them adjusted.

She toed the metal arm carefully to where it wouldn’t even hang in her peripherals, because even if it wasn’t the same arm, now with so many parts replaced...“The memories.” She still felt the old ache of killing blows jar her shoulder.

Ace nudged himself closer to her side as if gluing them together and she felt of-a-piece with him, like he was making himself her arm. Like back when she'd driven a motorbike and he'd been her lancer sometimes, pressed up against her back, moving like they were one being.

She turned towards him and felt her lungs expand as if a weight had been pushed off it. She should—

In the far corner there was suddenly a shout and a flurry of motion.

“ _Imperator Janey!_ ” Razor roared and the cheer was taken up by warboys around him as Janey looked around with no small amount of surprise and fondness, a somewhat embarrassed flush on her face. Tribunes Cheedo and Toast was talking to her at her side and it looked like some Council members were whispering together at the edges of the party, but most of the rest of the party just about boiled over with excitement, the music returning at a quicker pace and the dancing increasing in energy.

Furiosa laughed a little. _Finally._

"'Bout time," Ace said, nodding his head toward the circle of excited warboys that had just realised they were an Imperator's crew. Austeyr and Kompass were there too, clapping Warboys on the shoulder. Rachet was beaming, and Max seemed to be congratulating Janey.

"Yeah," Furiosa said, looking at Ace again. Tilted her head, because something was different about him and she didn't understand why she hadn't realised before. She reached out to him, lightly touched his face. The numb half that didn't move. Except it was moving, his mouth wasn't drooping nearly as much as it used to. As she traced it with her fingertips, his lips curled up.

“Yeah,” she smiled back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a discussion on [whether or not the traditional dance of the Vuvalini is or is not the electric slide](http://bonehandledknife.tumblr.com/post/138910058920/words-writ-in-starlight-primarybufferpanel). It was raised that it could have been the cha cha slide instead, or the macarena. We settled on a version of the macarena as if it has been passed through a game of telephone.


	50. Valhalla

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Where bright Valhalla's towers stand:_  
>  In burnish'd gold they proudly rise,  
> And lose their radiance in the skies."
> 
> 1797 Amos Simon Cottle, in Icelandic Poetry “The Song of Grimnir”

It was getting late. Most of the Soundless and some of the breeders had already left, carrying small children. Marienny's own had curled up in a heap with some of the others, warpups and little Citizens piled up together for warmth, dozing off or chatting quietly, giggling, making new friends. One of the warboys - the one Furiosa made her new ace - was sitting by the largest group together with Polaris, telling them a story in a low voice. Polaris was grinning.

One of the Drummer Boys quietly played his ukelele, a sweet, contemplative melody he must have picked up earlier in the evening. They had such joy in music, Marienny wasn't surprised they hadn't stopped playing all night, now they were finally allowed to play freely..

Marienny watched Naaka and Treb say goodbye. They made an interesting picture, matching in the curly paint patterns they'd chosen, the way the white paint contrasted on their skins. Marienny might have been concerned that they were related, much like Polaris and Furiosa's ace, but their facial structure was so different it was hard to imagine.

"So can I— I really enjoyed— maybe if there's a party again sometime?" Treb said, an endearingly hopeful expression on his face. Naaka's hand was folded in his, their fingers tangling. Marienny observed the two of them, a hand on her heavy belly, a lump in her throat with her memories. The dancing had been tiring, but joyful too.

Naaka was giving him a mournful look. "I don't know when that will be. Nobody's talked about— about a next time."

Treb's face fell.

Naaka turned to Marienny, and she couldn’t help but feel both fond and sad at the familiar expression on her face.

"Marienny, please, can we do something like this again?" the younger woman pleaded quietly.

Marienny glanced at where her children had snuggled up in a tangled heap, smiling in their sleep. "We'll have to see how often, iffin you’re on about the party. But we just talkin’ about the party, ‘cause ya’ll don’t need that to just _talk_. Can meet up outside of those," she told the other woman, who lit up, turning back to Treb.

It apparently hadn't occurred to either of them that there was no need to wait to see each other again, but neither of them had any idea of how to go about seeing more of each other outside the structures they'd lived under their whole lives. Not that Marienny herself had that much more of an idea, but she remembered very well what she'd wished she could have with Guzzer. All those stolen moments, so much of it that had to masquerade as normal interaction, be hidden from others for fear of it being taken away. Sweetnesses and kindnesses made furtive because it was so looked down on by other crew, by other Imperators, by Joe calling every place that wasn’t ‘their place in the breeder courts’ dangerous.

But. Was it so dangerous as Joe made it out to be? Or if it had been, was it still? Caution was a good idea in general but look at today, where all of the people of the Citadel mingled and no one came to harm.

Just because it was new to them, this way of acting, of being, didn't mean all of them were resisting it. She was sure some of the warboys had scoffed at the idea of coming here, of sharing music and dancing with breeders, but there were also quite a few warboys who'd come and looked to have enjoyed themselves. And these might push the other ones to be nice and behave. To see that there was benefit to this new way of being.

She watched as some of the war boys helped clean up, others herded the younger pups and Citadel children into warmer piles, spread blankets over them. And one or two offered to walk the women up, carry sleeping pups.

Maybe Naaka needed a little help.

"Hey," Marienny said quietly, stopping the other woman with a hand on her arm. "I was planning to go exploring the gardens tomorrow afternoon. Do you want to come along? You could ask your new friend to meet us up there."

She could always take a break and leave the two of them to wander by themselves for a bit. They didn't need chaperoning, but maybe that would be good for Naaka, to have somebody else there. Somebody to fall back on if she felt pressured to act like a breeder. Not that this Drummer Boy seemed like he would do that, with all his polite eagerness. If he'd never been granted a breeder visit he might not even have those expectations like a Warboy might. But… well, something told her that if she reminded Naaka that she could spend the night with him right now if she wanted, knowing it was an option might paralyse the other woman.

She had done a lot of thinking in the many days after Guzzer left, thinking on if there were better ways maybe to have talked to him, made better use of their time. But maybe she didn’t have the capacity back then for anything more than what she did, given her past and her experiences. And his as well. They'd done the best they could, knowing what they'd known. It hadn't been enough, but it looked like maybe their children would have more.

And maybe her experiences could help Naaka.

“You really think so?” Naaka looked at her uncertainly, “It would be nice to see how he is away from all this but. But I don’t know if… If….”

“You don’t have to decide just now, do you? The Tribunes say we have a choice now.” Marienny nodded decisively. “It’s just a walk.”

“Just a walk?”

“I’ll be right there, don’t hav’ta do nothing you don’t want. And if you like him, you take another walk. Ask him how that song is coming along. Walk some more. Hold hands. Just spend time together." She looked away. _Like Guzzer and I never had_. "You can do that. Don't have to decide if you want him in your bed right away. Or at all, really."

“That,” Naaka said it like a revelation, “that does sound nice.”

“He do anything you don’t like, or don't listen when you tell him no, well, there’s people all about up there."

She suddenly thought about that first time Guzzer had asked— he'd said the Imperator wanted him to ask if he could touch. And she'd said yes because she'd wanted him to, but also because it had been expected of her; the idea that 'no' could be an option had been too baffling. Breeders couldn't say 'no', not really. Furiosa had been trying to teach her crew something back then the rest of the Citadel wasn't ready for, but maybe now they were ready. Maybe everybody needed to learn how to say 'no' just as much as everybody needed to learn to listen and respect it when it was said.

"Tribune Dag works in the gardens mostly and you _know_ she’d tear into him if she has the slightest hint that he’s not being proper.”

“She would, wouldn’t she?” And Naaka laughed as she bent down to kiss Marienny's cheek, face flushed with excitement, and turned back to Treb.

Marienny watched her go and smiled past the welling bittersweetness in her chest. She turned to hide the dampness of her eyes, and saw Aurotaenia walking up quietly. Her daughter was out of her black Soundless robes for the first time in years, coming up to her shyly as if she didn't quite know what to do now. Marienny wiped at her eyes and held her hand out to the girl, the daughter she'd only recently been able to see again. Auro hesitated and then took her hand, and stepped in, and then Marienny folded her into a hug, quietly grateful to how much the world had changed in the past moon.

* * *

Furiosa looked on as warboys put the last of the tables back to their rightful places, and nodded that they could go if they wanted. The mess looked mostly put back together again, the remaining people trickling out or talking quietly in small groups so as not to wake the sleeping children, nested together. By the windows she saw that a group was forming of council members, Tribunes and Vuvalini. Ace was there, too, and Max. They looked to be talking mostly to talk, instead of discussing Council matters, so maybe she wasn't needed. She felt strangely hesitant to join them just to socialize, still not quite rid of the gloomy mood of earlier.

She drifted to a halt by a group of children being told a bedtime story by Kompass, who was accompanied by Polaris. Smiled a little and listened in.

"We were making camp with the Mohawk Tribe for trade," Kompass told the children, rapt attention on their faces. "They're a very strange people. Everybody lives together in tents and they spend a lot of time either braiding each other's hair or having it stick up straight. You’d think they’d make up their minds."

The children giggled.

"Like mama?" one asked, pointing at Polaris with her braided hair, and Kompass blinked.

"Well no, not nearly as nice," he said quickly. "So at night there was a campfire, and some of us were keeping watch on the vehicles, and others were at the campfire. And suddenly there was a great noise!"

The children gasped.

"And we heard this dumbass shouting 'They got loose!' so we jumped up, and and then it turned out they had _dragons_. "

"Dragons!" the children gasped. "Like the story at Tenday?!"

"Yeah, huge man-eating dragons, trained by the Mohawk tribe, strong legs, very fast racers. Bet the idiot released them himself thinking he’d get some ups catching them all hisself.” Kompass said absently, then caught himself drifting. "That dumbass was only along on the run because our best lancers were in the Blood Shed and he had decent aim, but he was always doing stupid shit. Got burned by 'em, too. Moron."

"Did they _breath fire_?" a pup asked. Some of them were sleepy, maybe beginning to drift off, but this one was brightly awake.

"Yeah, yeah. They didn't fly, but we were all running around trying not to get burned as well, and they melted some of our tires with their fire. Might have exploded some of our cars if Imperator Furiosa hadn't jumped in and fought them single handedly.”

Furiosa, just outside of their little circle, made a small choking noise, and Polaris met her eyes with a shy smile.

"Without her metal hand even?"

"Did I or did I not say _single_ handedly?"

"Is that how she lost her hand?" another kid asked, "To a dragon, like Luke Skywalker?"

Furiosa met Kompass' eyes over the nest of bedding and pups. He gave her a questioning look, because this had never not been a subject they treated with great care. She supposed it was as good a story as any, better than what actually happened, and nodded her permission at him.

"Yeah, she fought them off, but one of them bit off her hand," Kompass nodded. "There was enough fire to cauterize the wound. That's how she survived it."

" _Whoaaaa._ "

"And then she made herself a chrome hand?"

"Yeah, but it's not the arm that makes her chrome, you see?" Kompass said softly. "She's not wearing it now. Still just as chrome."

The sleepy-looking faces that were still looking at him nodded seriously.

Furiosa’s throat felt tight. She looked away and pulled up against Miss Giddy’s gaze, who held it for a second and then the History Woman looked back down at her work.

Miss Giddy was tattooing a new word on the inside of her left forearm.

 _Dragon-arm_ , it said.

“W—”

Furiosa found herself interrupted by a sharp look.

“Shh,” Miss Giddy said.

“But—”

“Did you know,” the old woman remarked as if carelessly, gesturing at her body, “why I started doing this?”

She felt her eyes narrowing. “To keep record.” Furiosa stated. “ _Truths_.”

“Ah. Well. The longer you live, I think, the more you realize how many truths there are,” Miss Giddy hummed, “And some are more worth telling than others.”

“But they should _know_.”

The History Woman _tched_. "You did lose your arm to a dragon. And then you slew him."

“But it took…” _so long, so much, it took…_ and here Furiosa couldn’t finish, couldn’t make herself list all that was taken; among them her arm, her dignity, and herself. All the parts of what she thought of as ‘herself’: her identity as a Vuvalini, the pieces of her soul, and the shreds of her self-respect.

“And that story is being told, both mourned and celebrated at Tendays now.” Miss Giddy nodded to herself in satisfaction. “But see, sometimes stories have to be told over and over again, in different ways, for people to understand it. And your truths are worth understanding. Don’t hide that away from those it could help.”

 _I am one of the Vuvalini!_ She'd called out in the Wastes, but as she watched Gale and Vicks and Gilly now, as she remembered watching the girls she’d freed take up Vuvalini hair trinkets and wrappings and manners with glee, as she moved among all of them these past sets of Tendays, she wasn't so sure it was true. Those thousands of days spent among the war boys, carrying out Joe's orders, had left their mark on her, even if most of the time it was unwilling and unsought. She wondered if her years in the Citadel hadn't made her more part of— made her more a warboy. Or made her some strange mixture of peoples and places that didn’t quite fit anywhere.

Furiosa swallowed hard. Her gaze drifted uncomfortably until it settled on where Austeyr and Max were helping Ace settle down on a ledge near the fireplace. Austeyr was grinning, gesturing for Ace to lean forward so he could stuff a cushion behind the older man's back. Next to Ace, Max sat down stretching out his bad knee. Watching them, Furiosa felt like a weight detached from the back of her neck.

_Maybe the one place where she fit was in this new Citadel?_

It was suddenly easier to stand upright.

“Like that. That’s a truth.” Miss Giddy’s smile came through in her voice, “You should probably see to it.”

She nodded back at her, not fully understanding but feeling the meaning anyway. Austeyr caught sight of her, and called out. Max's gaze clung to her, not looking down as she met his eyes, and Ace’s mouth tilted up in that strange fully-formed smile.

Furiosa let her feet take her there, slowly skirting the group of Vuvalini and council members and others that had formed a circle.

* * *

"So... I think I'd call this a success," Vicks said as she found herself a seat. She sounded just a little bit surprised.

Gilly hummed in agreement.

Most of the pups had been carted up to bed, a few of the larger ones remaining in warm little nests. The Repair boys and Drummers had all helped with clean up and left, fairly early but some council members still hung around as if gathering words or wool.

Feng was talking quietly to Corpus before some of the Milking Mothers helped him back to his quarters, and her shoulders seemed as relaxed as they probably ever got.

"Agreed." Dag said, leaning back to get more comfortable with her growing belly, “I’ll prod the greenthumbs to plant their ass in the next one.”

"It went surprising well." Toolbox chirruped. “That was what the Greenthumbs and Stuffs were waitin’ on weren’t it? Something to go wrong?”

"Yeah. But nothing did, even though the Distro boys had concerns about the ready grub."

"We should do this again." Capable still looked a little flushed from the dancing, sweaty tendrils of her hair swept out of her face.

"Mm! Even the food went okay," Cheedo said. "I was worried there'd be fighting too, but the Distro Boys handled it pretty well from what I could see, for all they were concerned, and everybody got a snack."

There was a chorus of agreement and several nods.

"Hey, how about we let different groups in the Citadel organize a party?" Mellie asked, playing at her hair.

"How do you mean?" Oti asked, filling in since Ace was still asked to take it easy.

"Well, we could rotate it. Maybe next time the Blackthumbs organize a party, with council support, or the Mill workers. Let them have some snacks to make it festive, like tonight. And they invite everybody too. And the time after that…"

"What if their idea of a party is being elbow deep into an engine?" Oti pointed it out. Toolbox just smiled wryly next to him and bounced a little on his spring leg.

"Then we give it a go, just like they gave dancing a go." Britt cut in as she hoisted a pup a bit higher on her hip.

"Well, OK. Long as you're ready to try," Oti grinned. "They'd need a bit of supervision, but we can do that," he said, and Kompass nodded.

“And maybe,” Capable said quietly but gaining volume, “Maybe we can make it last, make it grow. Maybe we can invite the other towns or other tribes, someday when we’re safe and secure. In the future.”

It was a heady thought, because to be _that_ safe, _that_ secure; to be able to be strong enough to let the other towns and tribes in like that was currently unimaginable. Was a thought no one else had dared approach because it sounded like the most dangerous thing. A _party_ , with them? To open their doors like one would to one of their own and trust that there would be no attack?

 _But didn’t the breeder courts do that today?_ Went the thought in the eyes of those in the circle. _Didn’t it work today?_

“It’s something to work towards, making this Citadel a place of peace.” Capable insisted. “It’s something entirely possible. You can see it, can’t you?”

They all looked at each other and it felt like standing on the edge of the high terraces, the ground yawning below and the air smelling of green, the terror of falling and that small inner voice that felt the wind making everything light.

That made it feel like you’re already flying.

(It felt like hope.)

* * *

  
Furiosa nodded to herself as she watched from outside the circle, satisfied with knowing that the council would steer the Citadel in a better direction than she could even have envisioned for herself. She would help defend it, but they would plot its course, with nothing of Joe in it like she might have done, and that felt exactly right.

She let her body sink down in the middle of her crew, shifted around until she was wedged between Max and Austeyr, Ace at her back. After a while Kompass drifted over from the now sleeping pups and wedged himself in at an angle, shoving his long legs under her knees so they were bent more comfortably. As if summoned, Rachet came over too, sat down on the ground to lean against Max's legs. They all shifted and prodded and grumbled until everybody was comfortable, a warm tangle of relaxed, satisfied bodies.

Furiosa looked around, taking them all in. Austeyr was also leaning against Ace, who looked content to support the lot of them, his own back supported by a cushion against the wall. Max had shifted to curl around her side a little, head against Ace's knee, his fingers playing lightly against her elbow. He looked at ease, settled somehow in a way she hadn't seen on him before. As if he'd stopped running, at least for the moment. She pressed her arm into his touch, a happy little hum in her throat.

Furiosa felt a large hand settle on top of her head. Knew it was Ace without even looking. His fingers lightly scratched her scalp, warm, affectionate.

"Glad to still have you," he said, and she tilted back her head to look at him, upside down.

Saw his mouth curl up. _Yeah, it was deliberate, he clearly remembered that touch, those words, so long ago now._

Warmth welled up inside her like fresh water. Affection for these men, new and old, for how after all that she'd done, all the distance travelled between then and now, she still got to have this.

She felt her own lips up lift in answer.

"Screw Valhalla," he murmured.

There was a hum of surprised agreement that came from somewhere around her. And something that sounded like a bubble of laughter muffled by tiredness. It didn’t matter where the hum came from, or where the laughter, or where the words. She knew without looking that they were in sync, and smiled without opening her eyes.

"This is perfect right here.”

* * *

**[END]**

* * *

_"If one tries to think about history, it seems to me - it's like looking at a range of mountains. And the first time you see them, they look one way. But then time changes, the pattern of light shifts. Maybe you've moved slightly, your perspective has changed. The mountains are the same, but they look very different."_

—Robert Harris

* * *

* * *

Most of the council members had drifted off to bed, only a few of the old women remaining by the fire. 

"So when Volt was here," Rachet looked thoughtful. "Why'd they call us the Furies?" 

"Furies?"

"Said he'd heard about us."

"Maybe it's like some've been calling you Furiosa's lads," Gale said.

"Hmm." He tilted his head, considering it. Didn't actually seem to dislike the idea. 

"Could have been worse," said Miss Giddy. "Coulda been an extra r in there"

"What?" Rachet frowned. 

"Nevermind."

Feng's face turned red and she made a loud wheezy sound that turned into laughter. 

Everybody collectively paused, and stared.

Feng didn’t even notice, eyes scrunched tight from laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \o/


End file.
